As if the coronavirus pandemic had not been bad enough, the three-day Infosecurity Europe exhibition in London, the first in person since 2019, coincided last week with the first two of three days of striking by rail workers.
That did make it harder to reach the venue – a new one for 2022, Excel in Docklands rather than Olympia in west London – but in the circumstances it proved an inspired choice, as the new Crossrail line, which has a stop at Custom House, a stone’s throw from Excel, was relatively unaffected by the strike.
The conference closed with a panel discussion, Next Generation, Next Challenges, New Opportunities, featuring Dr Sanjana Mehta of the industry body ISC2, Marc Avery of the Cyber Chain Alliance, and Jonathan Kidd from Computershare; asking whether the industry has what it takes to prepare for the challenges and opportunities of the coming decade.
Pictured is the opening speaker on day one, Lieutenant General Tom Copinger-Symes, Deputy Commander, UK Strategic Command. Another prominent speaker was Baroness Eliza Manningham-Buller, the former head of MI5, on day two. Among the end user speakers were, on ransomware, Barry Coatesworth, Director – Risk, Compliance & Security, Guidehouse, David Boda, Chief Information Security Officer, Camelot Group, Kevin Jones, Group CISO, Airbus; besides Craig McEwen, CISO, Anglo American; Ledum Maeba, Head of Information Security, Avanti Communications Group Plc; Alex Harris, Head of NHS and Social Care Cyber Risk, NHS Transformation; and Stuart Aston, National Security Officer, Microsoft.
A return speaker at the event, Jenny Radcliffe delivered the Infosecurity Hall of Fame Annual Lecture 2022, titled Facta Non Verba – Six Life Lessons from a Social Engineer.
TryHackMe was named the winner of the UK’s Most Innovative Cyber SME 2022 contest, on the Innovation Showcase stage. The competition is run by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport (DCMS) with Infosecurity Europe and tech trade association techUK.
TryHackMe provides immersive cyber training through real world scenarios, via a platform you access through your browser. Users learn through bite-sized lessons that are transferable to job roles in the industry. The firm caters to those looking to break into the market, businesses up-skilling staff, and education bodies training students.
Erika Lewis, Director, Cyber Security and Digital Identity, DCMS, presented the award. Ashu Savani, co-founder of TryHackMe, said: “We’ve had an incredible journey since setting out to make cybersecurity training fun, gamified, and accessible. We’ve helped over a million users across groups such as 11 year olds learning at school, construction workers looking for career changes, and technical professionals aiming to break into or upskill in the industry – seeing amazing progress and heartwarming successes. It makes everything we set out to do hugely rewarding. We’re grateful to DCMS and Infosecurity for recognising the work we’re doing, and are elated to have won this competition which will enable us to continue making security accessible for everyone, everywhere, contributing to pillar one of the UK Cyber Security Strategy. We want to ensure that no matter where people are based or what their background entails, they can come to TryHackMe, launch their learning journey, and smash their goals. We’re feeling delighted, humbled, and proud of our team and wider community – we can’t wait to see what’s to come!”
The other finalists were, in alphabetical order:
Cyber threat intelligence and aggregation platform Blackwired.
Vendor risk management firm C2 Cyber.
Conatix, which applies recent advances in AI and other fields of technology to insider fraud.
CyberHive, provider of cyber security that help organisations move into the cloud.
Ioetec, a specialist in securing data for IoT devices.
iQuila, creator of a military-grade encryption and security communications protocol that protects the device as well as the connection.
NquiringMinds, which specialises in data sharing and data analytics from edge to cloud.
Praeferre Ltd, which enables people to control and monetise their data.
Zero Trust firm RKVST.
Technical cyber consultancy and product company Red Maple Technologies.
Risk Ledger, a platform that helps clients keep on top of their supply chain security.
SafeShark, which helps manufacturers navigate cybersecurity standards for IoT.
Secure communications firm Worldr.
Nicole Mills, Exhibition Director at Infosecurity Group, said afterwards: “The theme we selected for Infosecurity Europe 2022 was ‘Stronger Together’, and we’ve seen this philosophy brought to life countless time over the last three days. The cybersecurity industry must become more collaborative in its efforts to keep society safe and secure, and our visitors grasped every opportunity to do just that – from networking events to roundtable discussions, and from on-stand meetings to informal offsite get-togethers. A quarter century on from the first event, Infosecurity Europe continues to play a vital role in bringing the infosec community together to do business, exchange knowledge, ideas and experiences, and learn from each other.”
The show is due to run at the same venue in 2023, from Tuesday to Thursday, June 20 to 22. Visit https://www.infosecurityeurope.com/.
More in the August print edition of Professional Security magazine.
