Improving vulnerability management and remediation processes is a task that requires cybersecurity pros to actively keep up with the latest developments in the threat landscape, business environment, and tech solutions. Due to the sheer volume of the task, staying current on all those issues is nearly impossible to do alone.
That is why attending carefully picked cybersecurity conferences and events is an invaluable tool to keep up to date.
We’ve curated a list of cybersecurity events for 2020 that you’ll want to consider attending.
FutureCon
When: January 15, 2020
Where: Atlanta, Georgia
Twitter: @FutureCon2019
The tagline of the event is “Cybersecurity is no longer just an IT problem,” and this broad focus on risk management is reflected in a wide array of topics covered. Throughout the one day event, there are plenty of sessions of particular interest to CISOs and risk managers that are focused on automating information security processes, effective endpoint and data security technologies, and cyber risk management.
This conference is geared towards senior-level cybersecurity professionals, offering new insights on the scope of global cybercrime, and a rare opportunity to learn from peers on how they’ve mitigated their organizations’ cyber risk in practice.
The keynote speaker this year is Daniel Sergile, Deputy CISO at Ciox Health, a seasoned security expert with over 25 years of experience leading cybersecurity teams. There will also be a panel discussion, “Dark Web, Insider Threat, Cyber Resilience,” featuring speakers from Check Point Software, Delve Security, and US Bank.
RSA Conference 2020
When: February 24 – 28, 2020
Where: San Francisco, California
Twitter: @RSAConference
No cybersecurity event list would be complete without mentioning the RSA – the highlight of many industry professionals’ calendars since 1991, going on strong for nearly three decades.
This year the conference is built around ten broad themes covered in the latest The RSAC 2020 Trend Report. The ten topics of focus are: the human element, secure products, IT and security, secure engineering, privacy, threat intelligence, frameworks, security awareness, communication, and professional development.
Don’t miss out on hearing from industry leaders like Lenny Zeltser, CISO at Axionus, and instructor at the SANS Institute and VP Global Security & CISO of Rockwell Automation, Dawn Cappelli. Vulcan will also have a booth at the Early Stage Expo – Kiosk 32. If you’re there drop by and say hi! For a full list of keynote speakers and presentations, click here.
The Cyber Security & Cloud Expo Global 2020
When: March 17 – 18, 2020
Where: London, UK
Twitter: @CyberSec_Expo
Of the two tracks at this event, the Enterprise Security track is geared explicitly towards a CISO audience. The first session of the event covers “Best Practices for CISOs,” with the rest of the sessions drilling down on a wide range of topics ranging from proving the ROI to the Board, discovering emerging technologies, scalability, and staffing issues.
An unnamed, classified speaker from the National Cyber Security Centre will speak on cybersecurity efforts on a national level.
Panel discussions in the Enterprise Security track of particular interest are Proving the ROI to the Board with Andy Bates, Executive Director, Global Cyber Alliance, and Steve Watt, Chief Information Officer, University of St Andrews and Evaluating risk to your business panel with Rafael Narezzi, CISO, WiseEnergy, and Cyril Segretain, Information Security Officer Europe, UNIQLO.
BSidesKC
When: May 8 – 9, 2020
Where: Kansas City, Missouri
Twitter: @_BSidesKC
This event is unlike all the other events on this list. This nonprofit organization regularly hosts InfoSec events all over the world designed to advance the body of InfoSec knowledge in a fun and engaging way that includes games, competitions, and informal atmosphere.
The agenda for this year hasn’t been released yet, but based on past year events we can be sure that we are in for a great event filled with fun, speakers, hands-on workshops, and a variety of “villages” or tracks focused around particular topics ranging from biohacking to phishing. Expect talks on monitoring & analysis, new technologies, and digital forensics.
Kids’ Village will be back at #BSidesKC 2020, making this a family-friendly event, and a good chance for InfoSec professionals to introduce the younger generation to their jobs.
As a general rule, the BSides community is focused on getting ahead of the “next big thing.” Their after-party is as serious as the event. In other words, this is a skill-testing, skill-developing, and high energy event.
North America CACS 2020
When: May 12 – 14, 2020
Where: Baltimore, Maryland
CACS is the top conference for IS audit and security professionals and offers a wide range of topics. This year’s program will include sessions on: IT audit & assurance, security, emerging tech, IT governance, compliance, risk management, data analytics, and leadership development & career management. Sessions during the conference cover topics like how to build Board’s cyber literacy and approach third-party vendor risk management.
This comprehensive conference will close with a keynote by futurist Amy Webb, professor of strategic foresight at the NYU Stern School of Business. Amy will uncover insights from the 2020 Emerging Tech Trends Report and offer practical tools on how to determine which IT and security trends will have the most significant impact on your organization.
Gartner Security & Risk Management Summit US
When: June 1 – 4, 2020
Where: National Harbor, Maryland
and
Gartner Security & Risk Management Summit UK
When: September 14 – 16, 2020
Where: London, UK
This year, the two summits will focus on showing the industry professionals “how you can shift the organizational culture to improve cybersecurity, privacy, and business resilience.”
Each event hosts an array of Gartner experts, including Tom Scholtz, Distinguished VP Analyst, who is speaking at the Maryland event. Scholtz often speaks on how to prioritize security needs and why security leadership needs to approach as an enabler of digital business, not just protector.
Among those speaking at the London event are Distinguished VP Analysts Tina Nunno, who often speaks on the human element of AI, and Paul Proctor, Chief of Research for Risk and Security.
Neither event has yet published a specific agenda. Still, topic highlights for both are sharing their insights and forecasts on cloud security, AI and ML, DevOps, and risk management, board communication, and addressing the risk management talent shortage, with a particular focus on building an organizational culture of cybersecurity, business resilience, and privacy.
AWS re:inforce 2020
When: June 30 – July 1, 2020
Where: Houston, TX
Twitter: @awscloud
Last year’s debut AWS re:inforce event had gathered over 8,000 attendees from all over the globe. The keynote speaker was Amazon CISO Steven Schmidt, which is appropriate since this is one AWS conference that focuses on security.
As enterprises increasingly move to the cloud, AWS re:inforce is an invaluable event to stay ahead on the security part of the puzzle. Stay tuned for this year’s agenda announcement.
Conclusion:
CISOs and cyber risk professionals, learning never stops. A number of these conferences offer you the chance to deepen your professional expertise, expand your industry connections, and generally re-energize you. Make sure that at least one of them gets off your radar and on to your calendar.
