Get To Know Khaled Fattal And How He Transformed The Internet Forever

June 4, 2024

Khaled Fattal is known for decades as the spiritual father of the Multilingual Internet for championing tuning the global English Internet into a multilingual one.

This was made to empower non-English language communities worldwide when this was seriously frowned upon in the early days of ICANN. Launched many innovative subsidiaries under MLi Group and the ‘Survivability’ Mantra, some are listed below, Media executive as Publisher & Editor-in-Chief of Survivability News.

Khaled is A highly motivated and innovative professional with over 40 years of professional experience with proven success with strategic and operational leadership and responsibility.

We interviewed him about his upbringing, getting into Cybersecurity, changing the landscape of the internet, Survivability and more below!

Where are you from originally?

Born in Syria. So I am an Arab American.

What role does technology play in your life now?

Important role, but I try not to let it control my life, as it has many, and not affect my values. Not easy lol.

What led you into Cybersecurity?

Being involved in the resiliency and stability of the global internet infrastructure since the late 90s and being referred to as the father of the Multilingual internet since the early 2000. I always remind people the internet is a bastard with many fathers lol)

What inspired Survivability.News?

It was the continuation of the journey since I created the Survivability Strategies around 2010 -11 to elevate risk mitigation above just cyber security which i predicted will fail on unprecedented scales ( and it has and continues to do so) and created the motto “Cyber security is no longer the keyword, survivability is was created.

Today, that motto has evolved into, “Security (cyber and non-cyber) is no longer the effective strategic focus, survivability is”.

Survivability.news was launched about 5 years ago to elevate the awareness of stakeholders at all levels. Top decision makers who need to learn this as it directly impacts their companies own effective competitiveness and/or survivability, as well as ordinary citizens, because their lives, livelihoods and the democracy they may live under depends on them becoming better aware and informed.

How do you think the economy will benefit from this?

See my answer in the reply to why is survivability the keyword below… those unmitigated events have dire impact on domestic and global economies. Better and more effective mitigation means less damage impact on businesses, consumers, citizens and therefore a less damaged and more prosperous economy. I can elaborate when we talk.

In fact my MLi Group recently launched the initiative called “Geo-Poli-Cyber Warfare Risks & Survivability Vs Cybersecurity” Online Briefings to elevate the awareness of top decision makers of the dire economic consequences this is not effectively addressed by government and corporate decision makers. See the announcement post at

https://survivability.news/for-immediate-release-geo-poli-cyber-warfare-risks-survivability-vs-cybersecurity-online-briefings-are-launched-by-mli-group-briefings-will-be-conducted-by-chairman-khaled-fattal-and-are-no/

Why is SURVIVABILITY the new keyword?

Because unless you change your strategic mindset and focus from security to Survivability you will continue to fail to mitigate cyber and non cyber risks, threats, attacks and events happening domestically and globally. (i can give you many publicly examples when we talk)

Why do governments and organizations continue to be cyber hacked despite all the money they spend on cyber security?

Because most Governments and organizational leaders are truly not innovators. Their is an economic reason why that happens. They rely on what is industry practice to do their job. And that industry practice is so out of date it belongs in the toilet. they are also stuck relying on vendors who keep them thinking that cyber security and technology and their solutions can mitigate cyber risks. They cannot. .

This is now 100% proven to be the case for the last decade and the price of getting this wrong has become increasingly more costly ever since.

That is not to say that cyber security is no longer important. It is actually more critical that even – But alone it cannot do the job…cyber security is a component within a comprehensive Survivability mitigation strategy that has many pillars. Cyber security, implemented with a different ethos and focus, is just one of those Survivability pillars.

How important is it to identify/name the threat?

critical . because if you cannot name the threat you cannot mitigate the threat.

This is why I created the terms Poli-Cyber and Geo-Poli-Cyber back in 2012 to differentiate between cyber attacks with financial motivations vs cyber attacks with political, geopolitical, ideological. Philosophical, “morphed religious”

Geo-Poli-Cyber™ attacks are far more sinister and cause significantly more damaging in impact. They are political, ideological, geopolitical, terrorist, extremist, ‘morphed religious’ motivated cyber and non cyber attacks and events which cyber security strategies and solutions continue failing to mitigate, defend and protect national and corporate entities, on unprecedented scales, and with devastating consequences.

How can we stop fake news and disinformation from poisoning the minds of our people?

Not easy. But let me try to simplify.

Fake news is a component in what we have labeled as “Purposed Disinformation” . Unfortunately, it is not just our adversaries and enemies who use it against us. But also, our governments, whichever party is in power, and many of our institutions, especially some of those who have the word “democracy” in their organization’s name.

What impact does that have on Democracy?

It is fundamental that for a country to truly call itself a democracy, Two critical components must exist:

1- The citizen must be informed.

Well, Would you disagree with me if i said that our citizens are more misinformed than ever despite the billions of terabytes of information at their fingertips?

2- Journalism, our Press organizations, must be objective, unbiased and capable of holding public officials to account, capable of upholding the ethos of true journalism, and able to withstand all pressures.

Well, would you disagree with me if i said that our news organizations today are failing all these standards?

An economic model is one of the core reasons of these societal cancers which have given rise to Purposed Disinformation and the Fake News debilitating our democracy and society overall.

Why is COVID-19 the ultimate exposure of the failure of governments all over the world?

The 2020 pandemic revealed a fundamental flaw in many Western democratic nations; their failure to appropriately prepare for a threat they knew was coming and the cost of this in human lives. This pandemic has shed light on the weaknesses of the current international order and economic, political, legal and democratic models and structures that enable it. It has also called into question the capacity of existing cyber security protocols and designs to protect nations, companies and citizens.

What is a current challenge for you and how would you approach it?

The globe has officially entered an unprecedented era. It is the “Unmitigated Geo-Poli-Cyber Warfare” threatening us and the world. At great risk are nation states, governments, organizations and citizens and everything we have, depend on, and stand for.

Governments and organizations cannot mitigate these new and ever growing risks with existing cyber security strategies and solutions alone, not even the best in class with latest tech or AI of them.

The emergence of AI, chat GBT and others accelerated the speed at which the scary vision I had in 2021-2012 becoming the scary reality of today.

It necessitates national, political and corporate leaders to come to terms with the fact “Security (cyber and non-cyber) is no longer the effective strategic focus, survivability is” and for them to seek the unrivaled experts who know about this ton help them identify the what they have not considered or implemented yet and the what, when, and how to elevate their effective mitigation strategies and solutions to survive this new and unmitigated Geo-Poli-Cyber Warfare era.

What was one thing you did that exceeded your expectations when you began developing your business?

To have had my Book Survivability hit the International best seller status twice, to have the its foreward written by Dr Arthur Laffer, the Father of Supply Economics, to have launched many Survivability Subsidiaries and initiatives, such as Survivability Wealth Management, and to be thought leading, helping and guiding seriously important national and corporate leaders worldwide to do better mitigation is very rewarding and satisfying to me.

What does success mean to you? What are your rules for success?

Money is not success to me. There is an ethos behind my vision and the business model we operate under and the way we did things back then do things today and why our business model is so unique.

My original prediction and vision 2011, 2012 was scary, very scary. So i set out to formulate the Survivability Strategy, its pillars and operational implementations knowing i am unlikely to have a client soon. It is very hard to sell solutions or services based on just a vision.

It wasn’t like i was offering a solution for a problem that existed in 2012 and I can offer services for it right there and then, generate revenue and profits, and then do an exit strategy for a billion or two 3-5 years later, which is what we have seen happen in the last decade or two.

What motivates you, what makes you tick?

Money does not motivate me.

It makes me feel good knowing I am helping leaders and individuals make better decisions which in turn makes the world a better place. It is my contribution to society,.

Funny enough, this were the same values and reasons I originally got involved in the global internet architecture in the mid to late 90’s and why I championed and pushed to making it the multilingual internet it is today, minus a few critical things that i pushed for back then but was unable to achieve and which are at the core of why Purposed Disinformation and fake News are so rife today on the net. ( perhaps a topic to cover on a subsequent interview)

The Fox Magazine is all about inspiration, what/who inspires you the most?

Seeing the little guy succeed against the odds without compromising their principle and values.

What’s something people would be surprised to learn about you?

I do not seek and never sought fame, or celebrity status.

What is your favorite or original innovation related motto, quote or words to live by?