Cybersecurity Events

InfoSecurity Europe 2025 focuses on weaponized AI

InfoSecurity Europe 2025, which begins in London today, Tuesday, June 2nd, will this year be dominated by the rapidly growing threat posed by the weaponization of artificial intelligence (AI). New to the conference is an AI and cloud security stage, which will exhibit ways organizations can counter the threat posed by AI. AI-driven cybersecurity also dominated the recent RSA conference in San Francisco. Over the last 12 months, threat actors haven’t wasted a moment capitalizing on the global fascination with Artificial Intelligence. As AI’s popularity surged over the past year, cybercriminals have been quick to exploit the new technology to carry out cyberattacks on an industrial scale.

AI-driven cybersecurity dominates RSA in San Francisco

Artificial Intelligence (AI)-driven cybersecurity is set to dominate RSA, the world’s largest cybersecurity event, which kicked off yesterday in San Francisco and runs from April 28 to May 1. Networking giant Cisco set the pace with an announcement that it is deepening its partnership with ServiceNow, a leading AI platform for business transformation. It is claimed that the combination of Cisco's infrastructure and security platforms and ServiceNow's AI-driven platform and security solutions will unlock mutual customers' ability to secure and scale their use of AI while decreasing risk and complexity. The first such integration will bring together Cisco's AI Defense capabilities with ServiceNow SecOps.

Cyber gets physical at Expo ‘24

Chief executives frequently vie with one another for the spotlight when delivering key speeches at major conferences. But the most-talked-about address of the day, given to a packed auditorium at the International Cyber Expo in London’s Olympia showground, forbade any recording or photographing of his talk. He also insisted he be referred to only as “Paul F”. “Paul F”’s bashfulness became understandable when he explained that the UK’s National Protective Security Authority (NPSA), where he is head of physical security, is now part of Britain’s secret intelligence service MI5. His talk neatly summed up the central theme of the show by providing evidence that the difference between cybercrime and physical crime has become blurred to the point of invisibility. He asked the very relevant question of whether a small drone spying into a City office using a telescopic lens and an 8k camera to read the staff’s log-in details through the window is a physical or a cyber-crime.

Deepfakes set to deceive at DEF CON

It looks as if deepfakes will be the hot topic at the big international hacker conference DEF CON in Las Vegas next week, just as they took center stage at InfoSecurity Europe in London in June. Visitors to DEF CON’s Artificial Intelligence (AI) village will be encouraged to create their own highly professional deepfake videos of fellow conference attendees by cybersecurity company Bishop Fox’s red team. The purpose is to educate conference goers about the growing dangers now posed to all organizations by deepfake calls purporting to come from senior executives or highly-trusted members of staff.

InfoSecurity Europe 2024 – Was It All Worth It?

As the stands were being packed away on the show floor at the end of the InfoSecurity Europe 2024 conference in London this week (June 4-6), it was time for exhibitors and attendees to take stock of the three-day event. The mood among exhibitors as they packed everything away in cardboard boxes was distinctly upbeat compared to last year’s event, which was still overshadowed by two long years of lockdown. “It was great to be among people two years post-pandemic and to be able to see the whites of their eyes and the smiles on their faces. In an industry as serious as cybersecurity, it is also important to have face-to-face moments of levity and bonhomie,” said Matt Butterworth, senior account manager at data erasure specialist Blancco Technologies. Neal Smyth, of managed cloud and cybersecurity company Ekco, commented: “Our presentation was oversubscribed with standing-room only. As well as generating leads, we had more customers coming to the stand this year. For example, a representative of a  government department simply turned up and asked us to tender. I also hear that other exhibitors were seeing more potential customers attending InfoSecurity this year.”

Deepfakes dominate InfoSecurity Europe 2024

InfoSecurity Europe, widely acknowledged as the chief global challenger to RSA in the US, kicked off with a Keynote speech and panel discussion on “Mapping the Deepfake Landscape.” Broadcaster and researcher Henry Adjer quoted numerous examples of the increasing sophistication of malicious deepfakes.  The most interesting example of a deepfake was a false image purporting to show an explosion near the Pentagon shared by multiple verified Twitter accounts last year, resulting in a brief dip in the value of the New York Stock Exchange.  “Threat actors are starting to explore the possibility of using deepfakes to move share prices with fake podcasts and video interviews with company C-suite executives of listed companies. Even if the fake is quickly spotted and squashed and the company’s shares are only impacted for 10 minutes, the threat actor can make a huge profit by speculating on the movement of a specific stock,” says Tim Grieveson, senior vice president of global cyber risk at cybersecurity firm BitSight, which in 2021 received £250 million funding from financial services giant Moody’s.