RSA Conference is a series of global events where the cyber security community talks about security, its advances and implications
RSA Conference, an information security conference and exposition, kicked off its fourth annual RSA Conference Asia Pacific & Japan in Singapore, on 20 to 22 July, 2016. The conference served as a platform for cybersecurity professionals to stay abreast of fast-evolving changes in the industry and the dark side of technology. The conference started with an opening address from Singapore’s Minister for Home Affairs & Minister for Law, K. Shanmugam. While speaking with close to 6000 attendees at the conference, he spelled national strategy to combat cybercrime by setting out the Singapore Government’s future plans, key principles and priorities.
The opening address was followed by power-packed key note by Amit Yoran, RSA’s President, where he discussed the need to examine perspective on cybersecurity. He calls for perspective change to combat cyber crime across the world. “We process data every second. We subconsciously filter and categorize things we observe based on what’s important to us, based on our own perspective,” Yoran said.
The sessions at the three-day conference were split across six dedicated conference tracks: cloud, mobile, & IoT security, eFraud & law enforcement, global perspective and security strategy & data security, threats and threat factors, as well as the newly introduced track this year – learning lab. During the RSA Conference, there were dedicated sessions spotlighting prevalent Asia-centric cybersecurity issues, such as cybersecurity posture of enterprises, government policies, and how Asian nations are secured from cyber risks and crimes.
To brainstorm over this, there was a panel discussion on day two, “Asian nations are smarter, but are they more secure?” The panelists were, Zulfikar Ramzan, Chief Technology Officer, RSA Security; Hilary M. Wandall, Chairman, IAPP; Paul O’Rourke, Lead Partner, Cybersecurity, Asia Pacific, Ernst & Young; Alex Taverner, Head of Cyber, Commercial Solutions, JAPAC, BAE Systems. The session was moderated by Dr Hugh Thompson, Chief Security Strategist and Senior Vice President of Blue Coat Systems Inc. Thompson is also Program Committee Chairman for RSA Conference USA. The discussion highlighted cyber security threats and where opportunities lie for businesses in the Asia Pacific region.
The conference was also studded with Sir Bob Geldof and Bruce Schneier. IBM’s Chief Technology Officer, and Security Technologist, Schneier presented an interesting talk about business defense and how to manage the insider threats. “What is going to happen to the world with the explosion of the Internet of Things, and how do we secure the internet” he questioned the attendees. Schneier stressed on the importance of out-of-the-box policies that can help in better syncing of technology and how the government functions in today’s internet-powered world. He said that we really need to start making moral, ethical and political decisions about how these systems should work.
Nobel Man of Peace Award Winner, Musician, Businessman, Activist, Geldof concluded the RSA Asia Pacific & Japan conference with his eloquent closing keynote about impact digital obsession of the modern world. In his closing keynote he told that he needs no cyber security as he still does not use a smartphone. However, he gave technology a credit for its ability to bring good life for people. He also pointed out that there is the huge divide in education and meaningful access in the developing worlds, and urged technology professionals to figure out how IT can bridge that gap.
RSA Conference is a series of global events where the cyber security community talks about technoloogy security, its advances and implications.The next RSA Conference 2017 Asia Pacific & Japan will take place from 26 to 28 July, 2017.
The author traveled to Singapore as a guest of RSA
