The world's top business information security officers will
focus on how to tackle new threats in a tough economic climate at
the start of the
Information Security Forum's annual congress today.
Over 500 security representatives have gathered in Barcelona,
Spain, for the
ISF's 19th annual
world congress.
The ISF is a not-for-profit association of about 300 of the
world's largest organisations that conducts business-oriented
security research and develops best-practice methods and tools.
Howard Schmidt, newly-elected ISF president, told Computer
Weekly that raising security around information in a volatile
financial environment will be a key topic at the three-day
event.
We will be looking at how we change the infrastructure and the
architecture from one were we add security to one where security is
built in as part of the business process, he said.
Schmidt, a former White House IT security advisor, said
attendees would also be swapping notes on what they are doing to
learn what is working and what is not.
Threats range from growth in
organised crime and cyber-warfare to avoiding accidental or
deliberate leakage of confidential data, he said.
Senior information security managers are also coming under
greater pressure from increasing compliance demands of legislation
and corporate governance programmes, said Schmidt.
The congress is to be opened by John Maule, professor of human
decision making at Leeds University Business School.
Other keynote speakers include Mark Hughes, director of BT group
security, and Mary Aiston, director of governance and security at
HMRC.