Sweater, A Sunday Refresher by Infosec Foundation

Sweater is not just a warm cloth to protect us in winter. It is not just a piece of apparel, which can be purchased from any shop. It is not just an output of some knitting techniques.

Hope you are wondering why suddenly in a hot and humid April of Kolkata, I have started talking on Sweater. Yes, you guessed right. This is the after effects of watching the latest Bengali Movie “Sweater”.

Last Sunday afternoon we had a premier and special screening with cast and crews in Carnival Cinema, Salt lake dedicated for Infosec Foundation Patrons and Members.

I am sure, again it has instigated your mind what is the linkage of a movie with cyber security, which is the core genome of Infosec Foundation. Wait, I will come to that point.

Before that, let us walk through the context of the movie. The story-line revolves around a Bengali middle class family from a class c city. The crisis for the elder daughter’s marriage has created the prelude of the movie. Younger daughter is extremely skilled with music, dancing and other extra-curricular Activities along with general smartness and good academic background. On the contrary, elder daughter is having almost no skills and always gets compared with her sister. In effect she keeps on growing down in morale and she gets rejected almost every sphere of life including marriage proposals. Her boyfriend also declines to marry in order to have bindings. Instead, he stresses on freedom, enjoyment of life and shows his reluctance on owning responsible. In this juncture, a twist comes into the story-line with an interesting marriage proposal where the mother in law from an elite family puts a clause of weaving skills of sweater as selection criteria for her would be daughter in law. Yes, everyone thinks this is not only wired, but also insulting for the girl as well. However, the lady is having his own justifications on it. As per her thought process, In modern times parents keep on grooming girls with singing, dancing, painting etc , but neglects an old family legacy like knitting. This tradition is not only an art, but flows with generations. Hence, if the girl knows knitting sweater, the same can create a comfort space between Mother in law and daughter in law.

Anyways, under this compulsive pressure, the girl starts being trained with her aunt on knitting. However, the aunt could not find the fire in her to learn knitting sweater for her own career, rather she was more focused towards passing the marriage exam. Her aunt tries to motivate her, boost her morale in order to ignite her underlying spirit of bouncing back for win for her own self. In the class, lot of different Activities get planned apart from knitting, like music , wrestling, outdoor activities and most students always think these are useless. Nevertheless, the teacher was adamant and she illustrates through live situations that knitting or any activities in life are linked with human mind situations. Moreover, that mind game decides the outcome quality of work.

With the series of excise, situations in life, the heroine could connect with her soul and objective of life. In effect, she learns knitting sweater with passion, gives exam with her would be mother in law, but rejects the outcome result. By this time, she got the spirit to accumulate strength, courage and enough wisdom to define her own path of life towards victory. In effect the Girl who was always got rejected by everyone in life sofar, could ignite her spirit to reject others like marriage proposal, mother in law terms and even the irresponsible boyfriend Pablo.

Overall, a wonderful family movie with fabulous location in hills with greenery, clouds and fog. Story movement little slow, however flow is good with excellent cast, great music, fantastic cinematography. This is the first production by the promoter house with a new director and new heroine. Sreelekha Mitra and Kharaj Mukherjee were two renowned cast in side roles, but they did excellent justice to their characters and in effect made the roles pivotal instead of just a side role. Sidhu (Siddhartha of Cactus) was a surprise package to me as I was not aware of these acting capabilities other than musical skills. Isha Saha played wonderful as “Tuki” and her Sister “Sree” was great as well. More precisely, both of them did justice to characters and made it realistic.

There was no family melodrama, overdoing of music, dance etc. Overall a fat-free simple movie with good to watch scenes with peace of mind. More precisely a first production from the production house with such an organized efforts with a distinct message to the audience is truly appreciable.

Now why suddenly a movie screening for Infosec Foundation. Hope by now with our many Activities last three years, you are well aware of Infosec Foundation vision and mission. Infosec Foundation and it’s global trustees believe any organized and sophisticated crimes cannot be only defended by tools-technology-processes, rather it needs inclusive efforts from people from all levels in the social hierarchy. In effect, we believe the basic defense is a common sense, more human like behavior than robotic actions. Hence igniting human mind is extremely essential so that they can start thinking before just sharing OTP over phone, just clicking on phishing link or responding to a provoking SMS. More precisely the cyber issues are propagated to the youth or elderly people instead of middle-aged little IT aware people. Too much of digital attractions of social media, digital content, streaming etc make everyone more screensavers and detached from family , relatives and society. In effect no friends, no adds, no family mixing programs, rather always addiction towards virtual world. In effect youth sometimes gets more adventurous and get trapped and elderly people gets compromised on no awareness on the usage of it.

Hence building cyber aware eco system needs an inclusiveness instead just tech workshop, seminars, event. And same thought process resulted a cause which can aggregate several families on a holiday for just fun and then mix, engage and get connected with each other under community building exercise.

With the same motive, we intend to organize Musical Evenings, Theater Festival, Picnic, Outbound Activities and soon. In effect, gradually cyber awareness best practices will get injected slowly and steadily through an organized process

As you know this is a voluntary non-profit activity, need everyone from audience to join, contribute, collaborate and build the eco system together.

Stay Tuned for future endeavors of Infosec Foundation.

 

Security Symposium & Awards – Bangladesh 17th Feb, 2019

Preface

Without last year’s grand success of multi-city “Security Symposium & Awards”, (Kolkata-Bangalore-Delhi-Mumbai) and the International Infosec Summit (Infosec Global 2018) in Kolkata, we planned for surging ahead to conduct Security Symposiums in Three international Cities (Dhaka-Dubai and Colombo) for the confluence of Global CISO’s to brainstorm on the future and impending challenges to conclusively emerge as Cyber Security Game Changer across the Globe.

Security Symposium and Awards Dhaka – 2019 was the first event as a part of a multi-city Event organized by Infosec Foundation and Enterprise IT World.

The Topic of the event will cover Cyber Security Road-map for Financial Sector/ Industry 4.0 / AI & Blockchain / Startups in IT Security ecosystem, Agility and Flexibility in adopting Cyber Security for Telecom/ Cloud/ Infra Providers, etc.

In the era of hyper-growth, and digital-driven economy, the enterprise risk management has reached to a whole new level. Cyber security has gone through a tremendous change and reinforcing India’s Cyber Security Framework is one of the burning issues in delivering high performance solutions. Only few countries have a cyber-security strategy or are in the process of developing one to protect against cyber-crime. While the overall cyber security posture of India is satisfactory, the mission is still far from being accomplished.

This is a platform that aims to bring together the MD/CEOs/CIOs/CDOs/CISOs in Global CISO’s with an agenda to interact and discuss the latest trends in Information Security and share their key experiences and learning. It will be an excellent opportunity for the attendee companies to showcase their services, credibility and product related to Information Security.

Event Brief:

The theme of the event is to create awareness on the roles and responsibilities of officers and persons protecting critical infrastructure. The Symposium will also witness awarding CISO (Chief Information Security Officers) of the country in recognition of their exceptional contribution to the industry.

Date & Venue:

The Westin, Dhaka, 17^th February 12 Noon to 9pm 

Delegate Profiles:

Around 200+ in numbers, 70% mostly CIOs from Large Enterprises Level Corporate, Bank & Financial Institutions, CEO & IT Heads of mid-sized organizations, 15% Key Govt. Officials, police, CID, Cyber Security Experts, Cyber Law Experts, Policy Makers, 15% Start-ups & Academia.   

Event Highlights

The event was graced by Chief Guest Mr.M.A. Mannan, Honorable Minister, Ministry of Planning, Republic of Bangladesh alongwith Mr.K.A.M. Majedur Rahman (Managing Director, Dhaka Stock Exchange).

Besides few eminent key speakers like Mr. Mohammad Arfe Elahi (Chief Technology Officer, Access to Information Programme), Dr Muhammad Abdul Mazid (Adviser – A K Khan and Company Limited), Mr.Kapil Awasthi (Regional Director, North & East , Check Point Software Technologies), Mr. Ahmed Rokibur Rahman (Wooribank), Mr. Syed Moinuddin Ahmed, (Additional Managing Director & Company Secretary, Green Delta Insurance), Mr. Tapan Sarkar (Founder President CTO Forum, Managing Director ADN Edu Services Ltd.), Mr. Md.Jasim Uddin (Former First Vice President, FBCCI), Mr. Pallab Ganguly (Chairman – IEEE Comsoc Kolkata Section, CISO-Gen Calcutta Electric Supply Corporation), Mr.B. M. Zahid-ul Haque (Head of Information Security, BRAC Bank Limited), Mr. Syed Almas Kabir, President (BASIS),   Mr.Shaerul Haque Joarder ( VP & Head of IT, Bangladesh), Cyber Security for the critical Infrastructure in a Power Utility, Mr. Jaspreet Singh (Partner – Cyber Security – Africa, India & Middle East (AIM), Advisory Services, Ernst & Young LLP),  Mr.Greesh Behal, Regional Head – West (Klassify), Mr.Espen Haagenrud, (CISO, Grameen Phone), Mr.Azim U. Hoque (Co-Founder at Cyber Security Forum, Founder and President at University IT Forum), Mr.Tanveer Ehsanur Rahman (CTO, Novo Telecom) etc has also confirmed their gracious presence as speakers.

Detailed Coverage:

Risk and its mitigation is an integral part of any strategic planning. Risks are associated with core strategic assets and these assets have to be protected.  In our times, many of our assets are highly dependent on IT infrastructure associated to run and manage them. For example, national power grid, power grid, logistics, dams, aviation, transport, capital markets, communication. These assets can be attacked and there are evidences of attack where IT infrastructure is used as the route of attack. Cyber security includes all kind of manifested and potential attack on these systems and in turn damaging the core assets behind these.  Policy makers in macro-economic planning must take into account the short term and long term risks that stem from this. Next, ways and means to mitigate these risks and investment needed – both financial and non-financial must be articulated. Today, various non-state actors and proxies wage offensive action against sovereign nations, public and private nations and some are targeted to cause profound economic and psychological damage. Thus, many commentators argue that future wars will be mostly cyber-wars. Strategic Planning is now obligated, both in policy level and in working level to acknowledge the risk of cyber threats and also an inter-disciplinary approach to mitigate it.

The inaugural session was focusing on the same area since the chief guest was the planning minister of Bangladesh and the linkage of Cyber Security with the Digital Bangladesh Strategies were discussed in details.

After the inaugural session of Mr.Mohammad Arfe Elahi, Chief Technology Officer, Access to Information Programme (a2i), Bangladesh extended his keynote address Cybersecurity Initiatives by Bangladesh Government.

Next one was by Mr. Pallab Ganguly, Chairman – IEEE Comsoc Kolkata Section, CISO-Gen Calcutta Electric Supply Corporation (CESC) on Cyber Security for the critical Infrastructure in a Power Utility.

Advanced Persistent Threat Landscape and Remediation Roadmap was illustrated by Mr.Mohit Puri, Director – Presales, India/SAARC, Sophos in the next session.

Mr.Kapil Awasthi (Regional Director, North & East, Check Point Software Technologies) was instrumental delivering his Theme Session on Industry 4.0 Trends, Strategy & Best Practices.

There after the 1st Panel of the day took place with an interesting topic “Industry 4.0: Beyond Man and Machine“.

It was human muscle power that moved early phases of civilization. Man tamed animals and animal-muscle was put to use, especially for agriculture. Then men invented early stone tools, machine version 1.0. For last 10,000 years, man created machines of such power and sophistication that we no longer talk as how we learn as how to operate a machine but how machines learn from us. Internet of today is a great man-machine learning system where man is learning about machines and we machines are learning how human beings work. Thus a new dimension is now in the horizon where we are talking of Singularity where machines get a critical threshold of “intelligence” and rule us or machines become so smart that we humans, their creators find ourselves bench-marked against machines and companies may put their recruitment notice board with the frightening words – Humans need not apply.

Dr. Muhammad Abdul Mazid was the moderator for the session. Below was the core team architecture of the panel:

• Moderator: Dr Muhammad Abdul Mazid, Adviser-AK Khan and Company Limited,
• Ahmed Rokibur Rahman, Head of ICT, Woori Bank,
• Syed Moinuddin Ahmed, Additional Managing Director & Company Secretary, Green Delta Insurance,
• Tapan Sarkar, Founder President CTO Forum, Managing Director ADN Edu Services Ltd.
• Md.Jasim Uddin, Former First Vice President, FBCCI.

Key deliberations of the panel was revolving around the below questions:

1. With machines becoming so smart and productivity gains so high, will fundamental laws of business be valid and applicable?
2. How will be companies of Industry 4.0 look like ?
3. How shall we keep human beings employed or what will be the core competencies and skills of the future ?
4. How shall we prevent a scenario where machines will be our masters rather than our slaves?

After the 1st Panel, Mr.Sajeev Sengupta from Checkpoint had taken a detailed session on Threat Intelligence and Response.

Next session was Panel 2 on Security Orchestration and Managed Security it look place in the evening just after the tea break

Historically, IT security was diagnostic and reporting based. A security system used to monitor and report and the framework was that of “incident” and “events being managed.”. An evolved framework is now needed for more integrated and comprehensive reporting plus “acting” automatically for a wide range of events. This is Security Orchestration and Automated Response. For managed security business, SLA deviation not only results in loss of business, in worst cases of breach, it can lead to criminal proceedings even. Enterprises not only need to take action but also to demonstrate that a synchronized, timely and effective actions were taken and in a well documented manner for the threats and vulnerabilities. On the other hand, some of the current and future security threats and vulnerabilities will be launched in a way that there is not enough time to “report and analyse and act”, rather the system needs to be smart enough to take action automatically. Thus in short, we are finding an evolution from “reporting” to “acting”.

Security automation and orchestration replaces slow, manual analyst intervention from conventional incident response processes with machine-speed decision making.

Manual incident response processes, insufficient workflows and difficulty hiring security personnel have left security operations teams struggling to keep up with the growing volume of alarms. SOAR combines comprehensive data gathering, standardization, workflow analysis and analytics to provide organizations the ability to easily implement sophisticated defense-in-depth capabilities based on internal and external data sources.

Mr.Shaerul Haque Joarder was the  moderator for the session.

Below are the architecture of the panel team:

• Moderation: Mr.Shaerul Haque Joarder, VP & Head of IT, EPIC Group
• Mr.Espen Haagenrud, CISO, Grameen Phone
• Mr.Azim U. Hoque, Co-Founder at Cyber Security Forum, Founder and President at University IT Forum
• Mr.B.M.Zahid-ul Haque, Head of Information Security, BRAC Bank Limited
• Mr.Syed Almas Kabir, President – BASIS, CEO & shareholder of MetroNet Bangladesh Limited and Managing Director of AyAl Corp
• Mr.Tanveer Ehsanur Rahman, CTO, Novo Telecom LTD

Key deliberations of the panel was revolving around the below questions:

1. Importance of SOC (Security Operations Centre) and Incidence Detection and Response
2. Awareness of Cybersecurity in the society in order to adopt proactive measures
3. Potential Threats, Vulnerabilities and remediation measures in Financial Sector
4. Govt. and Policy makers standpoint on managed security arena
5. Impact of Cyber Attacks and adoption of 24×7 monitoring systems
6. Placing Managed Defence and Security Orchestration Strategies to the management/board

InfoQuest, the sixth print journal of cyber security was launched in Dhaka as well. E-version of the same can be fetched from this link

The concluding part of the event was Cyber Awards for significant achievements in the domains

More detailed photographs can be visible from the Facebook Album.

Stay tuned for our future initiatives.

“Infosec Global 2018”, 3rd International Infosec Summit in Kolkata

Preface

Last two years “InfoSec Global” had added a new feather in the cap for Kolkata. The worshiping of Cyber Wisdom is the major festival has become a critical milestone for the city of joy to welcome winter.

3^rd Edition of International InfoSec Summit “InfoSec Global 2018”, took place at The Park, Kolkata on 16^th November, 2018.

InfoSec Foundation is a non-profit Foundation dedicated for cyber awareness for citizens. This is being shaped as a platform to exchange ideas among different stakeholders like Govt., Banks, Police, Corporates, deciding best practice for industry, creating a road-map for Cyber Security, Information Security, Data Security in order to have cross pollination.

In the mission of spreading Citizen Awareness, we have already taken many steps pan India basis apart from our initiatives in Bangladesh, Africa and United Kingdom. Last two years we had organized international InfoSec Summit in Kolkata with all different stakeholders. Last July-August, we had concluded a 4 City CISO Symposium (Kolkata-Delhi-Bangalore-Mumbai) to connect the CISO community.

This year the event has grown larger with greater impact, reach, content and participation.

InfoSec Foundation is already working as voice of citizen where we bring in all stakeholders together to create a more aware and responsive ecosystem. Connect and extend initiatives that have not reached the targeted audiences, find gaps and demand raise the silent voice so that it reaches the ears of policy makers and functionaries.

Summits, CIO Roundtables, Print Journals, Cyber Security Help lines, Seminars, Training, Workshops, Product Development – these are few envisaged areas we have already started working in India, Bangladesh, UK and Africa.

InfoSec Global 2018 is the outcome of same vision driven by Infosec Foundation.

Infosec Global 2018, Kolkata

Infosec Foundation had taken the important responsibility through the International InfoSec Summit to ignite cyber security wisdoms among stake holders. Third edition of this International Summit took place on 16^th November, 2016 followed by 2^nd Edition on 3^rd  November, 2017 And first edition on 18^th November, 2018 in Kolkata. These event series has become integral part for the eastern Eco system to leverage the opportunity to connect the best Cyber Security Experts across the globe and get enriched with cyber knowledge.

This year the event was supported by West Bengal Government, NASSCOM, STPI and IEEE. Besides Prime Infoserv, Fortinet, FireEye, Kaspersky, IBM Security, Vehere, India Cyber Security Solutions, Global Insurance, Tata Teleservices, Hipla were the key sponsors who helped us to make it possible.

    

Theme of the Event

‘Cyber Resilience and Agility in your Digital Future” was the theme for the 3^rd International Infosec Summit in Kolkata this year. The program was designed for the leaders from the field of IT Infrastructure, Data Security, and Information Security across verticals. With the spread of Digital Assets and connectivity, the flexibility and agility is most important parameters to have proactive Defense. The strategies, action plans, learning, case studies, technology and process benchmarking etc. were highlighted during the summit in order to have greater wisdom for the audience.

Speakers and Topics

The event was graced with Chief Guest Dr.Gulshan Rai (Chief Cyber Security, PMO, Govt. of India). Mr. Shyamal Datta (IPS Retd., Former Director – IB, Former Governor of Nagaland), Mr. Debasish Sen ( IAS, Additional Chief Secretary, Information Technology & Electronics, Govt. of West Bengal), Mr.HariKusumakar (IPS, Secy Co-ordination, Home & Hill Affairs and Satet Cyber Crime Co-ordinator, West Bengal), Mr. Sanjay Mahapatra (Editor, Enterprise IT World) and Mr.Sushobhan Mukherjee (Chairman, Infosec FOundation and CEO , Prime Infoserv) was part of the inaugural panel.

 

Besides, the event had witnesses array of speakers across industry with the gracious presence of the global thought leaders. Eminent personalities like Dr.Ajeet Bajpai (Director General, NCIIPC), Ms.Vaishali Bhagwat (Partner VP -Shintre & Associates), Mr. Michael Joseph (Director, Systems Engineering, Fortinet),Mr.Nabankur Sen (Bandhan Bank), Mr.Shrikant SHitole (Country Hed, FireEye), Mr.Akshay Verma (Global Insurance), Mr.Gautam Kapoor (Partner, Risk Advisory, Deloitte India), Mr.Ahmed Rokibur Rahman (AVP, Head of ICT, Woori Bank, Bangladesh),  Mr.Debasish Ghosh (Chief Internal Auditor – Srei Group, President – Institute of Internal Auditors), Mr.Vishak Raman (Director, Security Business, Cisco India & SAARC),Mr. Anup Deb (IBM Resilient, Singapore), Dr. Amar Prasad Reddy (Director General, National Cyber Safety and Security Standards), Mr. Gant Redmon (IBM, United States), Mr.Sanjay Das (Deputy Secretary, Information Technology & Electronics, Govt. of West Bengal), Mr. Debasish Dey (Professor and Director, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad University of Technology), Mr.Ashok Sharma (Co-founder, and CTO, QOS Technology), Dr. Amlan Chakraborti (Professor & Director. AK Choudhury School of IT, University of Calcutta), Mr. Ishtiyaq Ahmad Shah(Security Consultant, FireEye), Mr. Dinesh O Bareja (COO – Open Security Alliance), Mr. Arijit Samanta (Regional Head, East India & Bangladesh, Kaspersky), Mr. Ritesh Bhatia (Director – Cybercrime Investigations, V4WEB Cybersecurity), Mr. Partha Sengupta (Vice President, ITC Infotech), Mr. Gigi Joseph (CISO, Bhabha Atomic Research Centre), Mr. Michael Joseph (Director, Systems Engineering, Fortinet), Mr. Arnab Bhattacharyya (Partner, Ernest & Young), Mr. Mohammad Zahinul Islam (Managing Director, lnter Exchange Solutions Limited, Bangladesh), Mr. Rana Sircar (Ericsson) etc. had graced the audience with their deep insight.

    

There were many interesting topics like Evolution of Cyber Resilience in Digital India, Cyber Crime, Cyber warfare, International Cyber Law, Digital Transformation is demanding “Tear down These Walls”,

Beyond Compliance- Security Challenges For Financial Services Industry, Integrated Architecture Approach to Securing your Enterprise, Security Orchestration and Managed Defense, Paradigm Shift of Indian Cyber Security, Vulnerabilities around Blockchain, Cyber Security Capacity Building – Turning Knowledge Into Performance, Threat Hunting, Infrastructure Security, Building Next Generation Cyber Defence, Rising Threats of Darknet, Taking Cyber Security To The Board Room, 5G Security etc.

Audience

There were 250+ people attended the event with delegations from all leading corporates, enterprises, academia, government, law enforcement agencies, manufacturers, providers etc. not only from india, but also from Bangladesh, Singapore, United States and United Kingdom in order to have true global flavor.

The audience were mainly from senior management, decision makers in the stature of MD, CEO, CIO, CFO, COO, GM etc.

 

There were 30+ Media Houses from print, television, radio and web platforms who were keen to spread the buzz to the mass audience.

Take Aways

The event had great deliberations in exchanging thoughts, knowledge, ideas, and case studies on cyber security among the speakers, audience, attendees, participating stakeholders. The same had not only generated great enthusiasm over networking, but also generated direct business opportunity.

The event has raised several voices, concerns from the community, extended government / policy makers’ roadmap, articulated steps on synchronization between stakeholders and surely created platform for enriched knowledge in order to have better wisdom. It was indeed a great platform for students, cyber aspirants to learn, engage and contribute.

6^th Edition of InfoQuest (the dedicated print journal of Information security) got unveiled during the summit. The print journal is working as a great tool as the mouthpiece of the industry in cyber security domain.

 

Infosec foundation had recognized several individuals and communities for their significant contribution in the domain.

  

Music was also not kept aside. Mr.Parijat played his solo songs ranging from Bob Dillon, RD Burman to his own Bengali Compositions whereas The Band Spectrum played the instrumental under the leadership of Arnab Bhattacharyya.

 

Infosec foundation is continuously working to connect human spirits beyond tools and technology and in effect, there was special attention on food apart from Music.

The lunch was consisting of Papri Chaat, Various Choices of Salads, Grilled Fish with Lemon Capers, Tandoori Chicken Butter Masala, Dhokar Dalna, Navratan Korma, Dal Makhni, Steamed Rice, Raita, Dahi Wada, Indian Bread, Kulcha, Hot Gulab Jamun and Ice Cream. Post Cocktail over snacs,  Dinner was of mix of Green Salad, Russian Salad, Fish Orly, Chicken Tikka Lababdar, Chhannar Dalna, Mixed Subzi Jhalfrezi, Rajma Masala, Peas and Corn Pulao, Anar Raita, Butter Naan, Assorted Sandesh, Angoori Rasmalai etc. The blend of traditional bengali cuisine with the nort indian delicacy had generated immense excitement in the audience.

The story does not end here. The journey will continue. Stay tuned for our upcoming movements.

More photographs can be fetched here.

Any queries can be directed to secretariat@infoconglobal.org

“Infosec Global 2017”, International Infosec Summit in Kolkata

Preface

Winter in Kolkata has different charming flairs and “InfoSec Global” added a new feather in her cap through a mega InfoSec Summit since last year.

This year “InfoSec Global 2017”, the international InfoSec summit took place at The Park, Kolkata on 3^rd November, 2017

Even though there is a lot of buzz around Cyber Security, there are many gaps as well. The areas of concerns touch everyone, our ignorance, over confidence and complacency. We keep on complaining that things are not happening the way we think it should be. However, there are many things happening as well. We need to open our minds and have a convergent thinking. It’s time to complement instead of complaining.

Govt is devising many strategies for the benefit of citizens on cyber. Law enforcement authorities are doing their work at the ground level. Enterprises taking lot of initiatives to implement tools, technologies, processes.

The challenge is how to bind these all-together, how to aggregate efforts, consolidate and converge in order to make it meaningful for the society and civilization? InfoSec Foundation is trying to drive this across the globe.

InfoSec Foundation intends to work as voice of citizen where we bring in all stakeholders together to create a more aware and responsive ecosystem. Connect and extend initiatives that have not reached the targeted audiences, find gaps and demand raise the silent voice so that it reaches the ears of policy makers and functionaries.

Summits, CIO Roundtables, Print Journals, Cyber Security Help lines, Cyber Security Curriculum for next generation – these are few envisaged areas we have already started working in India, Bangladesh, UK and Africa.

InfoSec Global 2017 is the outcome of same vision driven by Infosec Foundation.

Infosec Global 2017, Kolkata

Ignite cyber security!! That’s the mantra. And to enkindle it, Infosec Foundation had taken the important responsibility through the Iinternational InfoSec Summit. The first summit took place last year 18^th November, 2016 and the same is followed by this year on 3^rd November, 2017 in Kolkata. The event was important for the eastern eco system to leverage the opportunity to meet the best CYBER SECURITY EXPERTS from all across the subcontinent and gather some of the most tenacious knowledge regarding cyber security.

Theme of the Event

‘International Security in Digital India-Threat, Challenges and Opportunities’ was the theme for the 2^nd International Infosec Summit in Kolkata this year. The program was designed for the leaders from the field of IT Infrastructure, Data Security, and Information Security.

Major topics were discussed in the event are cyber security issues in Bangladesh, Digital Forensics, creating new generation cyber militants, Cyber Economics, and much more.

The event was conceptualized exclusively for creating a mutual platform for all the stakeholders who are engaged in Information Security.

Speakers and Topics

The event had witnesses array of speakers across industry. Dr.Sanjay Bahl, Director General, Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (ICERT) was the Chief Guest of the program. Mr.Shyamal Datta (IPS – Retd., Former Director – IB, Former Governor of Nagaland) , Mr. Debasish Sen (Additional Chief Secretary-IT, Govt of Bengal), Mr. Vineet Goel, IPS (Addl CP I, CISO-Govt. of Bengal) and  Mr. Hari Kusumakar, IPS (Addl CP IV) joined him alongwish the Infosec Foundation Chairman in the gracious inaugural ceremony.

   

Other eminent personalities like Mr. Bratya Basu (Honourable MIC-IT, West Bengal), Ms.Rama Vedashree (DSCI-NASSCOM); Dr. B. M. Mehtre (IDRBT); Col Inderjeet Singh (Smartcity Expert, Ex-Director – Military Intelligence at Ministry of Defense); Mr. Vivek Srivastava (ReBIT – Reserve Bank); Mr. Deepak Kumar (Digital Forensic Expert), Mr. B.M.Zahid-Ul Haque (CISO-Brac Bank Bangladesh), Mr. Harish Agarwal (Partner, Ernst & Young), Mr.Somak Shome (Director, PWC) had enriched the audience with their deep insight in the domain.

   

Cyber Security Domain experts like Mr.Shrikant Shitole (FireEye), Mr.Nitin Varma (Palo Alto Networks), Mr. Sudeep Das (IBM), Mr. Manuj Kumar (Symantec), Mr.Kapil Awasthi (Checkpoint), Mr. Rishikesh Kamat (Netmgic), Mr. Subramanian Udaiyappan (Cisco Systems) Mr. Akshay Verma (Global Insurance), Mr.ParthaSarathi Das (Tata tele Services) had also added substantial valued to the content of the conference.

     

There was interesting topics like “Cyber Security Readiness for Digital India”, “Cyber Economics”, “Creating Next Generation Cyber Warriors”, “ The Cyber Security Architecture of the Future”, “Building a robust Cyber Security Architecture with Integrated Cyber Defense Platform”, “Machine Learning for Cyber Security”, “Cyber Security Challenges in West Bengal”, “Digital Forensics”, “Opportunities in Cyber Security space”, “Next Generation Cyber Security Trends”, “Cyber Thereats on Internet of Things”, “Threat intelligence strategy to strengthen cybersecurity posture for the financial sector”, “Cloud security”etc.

Audience

There were 250+ people attended the event with delegations from all leading corporates, enterprises, academia, government, law enforcement agencies, manufacturers, providers etc.

Anandabazar Patrika (ABP), Accenture, Allahabad Bank, Bandhan Bank, UCO Bank, United Bank of India(UBI), BRAC Bank-Bangladesh, Balmer Lawrie, Bridge & Roof, BSI, Capgemini, CESC, West Bengal State Electricity Transmission Company (WBSETCL), Criminal Investigation Department (CID) – West Bengal, Bidhannagar Cyber PS, Kolkata Police,  Exide, Genius, ICRA, ISACA, Jadavpur University, Jayashree Textiles, Linde Global, M.N. Dastur, MCKV Institute, Meghbela  Broadband, Meghnad Saha Institute of Technology, NASSCOM, National insurance, Neotia Group, NIA, CBI, NIC, NSHM, Onprocess Technology, Protiviti, PWC, Ernst & Young, Sahaj E-Village, Sillycon, Simplex Infra, Spencers, SREI Infrastructure Finance, Srijan Bhumi, TCG Digital, Techno India, TATA Pigments, Tractors India, TUV, Vedant Fashions, Vikram Solar, VISA Steel, Webel, ITC were few names of the key attendee organizations.

 

The audience were mainly from senior management, decision makers in the stature of MD, CEO, CIO, CFO, COO, GM etc.

There were 30+ Media Houses from print, television, radio and web platforms who were keen to spread the buzz to the mass audience.

Takeaways

The event had great deliberations in exchanging thoughts, knowledge, ideas, and case studies on cyber security among the speakers, audience, attendees, participating stakeholders. The same had not only generated great enthusiasm over networking, but also generated direct business opportunity.

The event has raised several voices, concerns from the community, extended government / policy makers’ roadmap, articulated steps on synchronization between stakeholders and surely created platform for enriched knowledge in order to have better wisdom. It was indeed a great platform for students, cyber aspirants to learn, engage and contribute.

4^th Edition of InfoQuest (the dedicated print journal of Information security) got unveiled during the summit. The print journal is working as a great tool as the mouthpiece of the industry in cyber security domain.

The event strengthened the thoughts driven by Infosec Foundation with the overwhelming support from all corners and laid the foundation for more positive vibes towards upcoming Infovision(CIO Roundtable), InfoQuest (Print Journal), Infoconnect (Cyber Security helpline) and well as next years International Infosec Summit.

It was amazing to see people had joined in the breakfast (before the day event for mixing sessions with the speakers) and continued to stay with the initive till late evening (cocktail dinner with the speakers and partners).

Infosec foundation had recognized several individuals for their significant contribution in the domain and the same was was followed by instrumental music.

   

Stay tuned for many interesting things ahead. Do join the movement, contribute, engage, explore and be the part of historic movement generated from Kolkata, the city of joy.

Detailed Analysis can be fetched from the link below:

Infosec Global 2017 Report