Matthias Attard
May 27, 2024
Matthias Attard
May 27, 2024
The second edition of The Cybersecurity Imperative conference, organised by BMIT Technologies, was held on May 14.
The conference, which was hosted by well-known presenter, Trudy Kerr, brought together cybersecurity experts, professionals, and IT decision makers from a wide range of companies to listen to an excellent line-up of local and international speakers discussing the evolving landscape of digital security and resilience building.
The excellent turnout spoke volumes about the importance and significance of cybersecurity to businesses and organisations in Malta.
There is an ever-growing urgency surrounding cybersecurity. Recent cyber threats and breaches have underscored the critical need for everyone to act decisively and collaboratively to safeguard their businesses.
The main theme at this year’s event was building resilience today for a secure tomorrow, and the speakers addressed his topic by discussing the elements that comprise resilience building.
BMIT’s CEO, Christian Sammut welcomed the attendees, talking about the key themes being discussed and why BMIT organised that conference.
The first speaker, Inspector Clive Brimmer from the Malta Police Force, certainly set the tone for the day with some shocking statistics on cyber fraud and cyber scams impacting organisations in Malta, with Business Email Compromise (BEC) the major attack method used.
Christian Bajada, Head of Information Security at BMIT, pitched an interesting battle between compliance and security, with the latter emerging as the winner. His point: without a security-first mindset, all you have is Security Theatre.
Brian Wagner, CTO of Revenir and former Head of Compliance EMEA at AWS, giving his experience also as an engineer, spoke about transforming businesses through a security-first approach and how with that mindset in place throughout the organisation, building resilience becomes almost second nature.
Compliance was certainly not ignored, or its importance minimised as Dr Ian Gauci from GTG, explained the development of the cybersecurity legislation in the EU, giving some tips on how businesses can achieve compliance with the least pain during a panel session.
It goes without saying that AI was a hot topic. Microsoft’s Nicolas Yiallouros showed how AI can boost cybersecurity. He spoke on the importance of threat intelligence and the need for more information sharing between organisations.
BMIT’s Chief Digital and Compliance Officer, Dione Vella, followed on from Brian Wagner, taking attendees on a step by step approach to developing a security culture and why it is crucial to building resilience.
While the present is important, attendees also got a glimpse of the very near future. Prof. Andre Xuereb, a quantum physicist, introduced the basics of quantum computing and quantum cybersecurity, and the practical application and impact of quantum on security.
A panel discussion followed. Taking questions were Brian Wagner, Dr Ian Gauci, Nicolas Yiallouros, Prof. Andre Xuereb, BMIT’s head of customer delivery Sean Cohen and Brian Zarb Adami, CEO of CyberSift.
Wrapping up the event, Nick Tonna, chief customer officer at BMIT, spoke about BMIT’s portfolio of solutions and services that help businesses achieve a strong security posture and assistance with their journey towards compliance and resilience-building.
