Tag Archives: event

Hi all!

As per my chokka, ongoing business-trip schedule, I recently found myself down in Sochi where we had our 12^th conference dedicated to industrial cybersecurity. Every year the industrial topic gets all the more popular, while our exhibition gets all the more large. Nearly 450 guests were in attendance this time – meaning we wouldn’t have all fitted into last year’s venue; accordingly, the view out the window was a little different to the usual one:

I kicked things off to a packed hall (just how I like it) ->

Read on…

Now for a quick review of my recent business trip to Tianjin, China…

The first thing that came to mind when we reached downtown was: “Where are all the millions of Chinese folks that I’ve been told live here?” For the mentioned downtown sure seemed rather deserted empty for a city of 14 million – just as it did on my previous trips to the city (2012, 2019)…

The internet and my other senses tell me this city is far from an uninteresting place to live. People have called the banks of the river here home since ancient times, which makes sense given its climate. But then the Chinese emperors moved the capital north to Beijing (I still don’t understand why), which in Chinese literally means “Northern Capital” – 北 běi for north and 京 jīng for capital.

The migration of the imperial capital north and subsequent prospering of Tianjin happened (if we believe unverified sources) around 600 years ago (see here), and the city turned into a southern port for the capital, which I’ll show photos of a little later. This was the first time these river backwaters got lucky. Then for centuries Tianjin was a major transit point from the southern provinces to the capital, and from the capital and back.

Read on…

I’ve a great many different hobbies and favorite activities – just like anyone. But one of the more unorthodox is long-distance beach-walking. What that?! Easy: Take any sandy beach – and stomp along it barefoot for as long as possible…

Does that include walking back all the way barefoot too? It does indeed. And I’ve never needed alternative options, which are, btw: (i) take a cab; (ii) take a taxi-boat by sea; and 3) be carried in/on some kinda carriage by porters (no WAY!)!

As regards some of the folks who may want to join me on such a barefoot beach-hike, I often have to feel sorry for them! Like I did recently in the Dominican Republic where we had our regional (North, Central and South America) partner conference: in-between work some colleagues joined me…

So we headed on down to the beach, looked left – not much happening down there, and then right – and decided that was the better option. The main reason: there was a tangible destination > that far end of the beach (with the trees behind it) where it seems to just end. Endpoint decided, off we popped…

Read on…

Hi folks – from sunny thunderous Thailand!

Been a while, I know – but I’ve been busy (as always). Of course I have – for it’s our partner-conference (both regional and global) season. We’ve already had Italy and Hungary; now it was Thailand’s turn…

After landing, we head on over to the venue, which turns out to be the same hotel where we put on another conference (SAS) late last year. Small world, and déjà vu, as they say…

But back to this year’s conference: it was the partner conference for the ~Middle Eastern and African regions, aka META (Middle East + Turkey + Africa). But enough already with definitions and demarcations! Let me simply tell you the conference was a 10/10!

• Guests: 135 (140 were planning to attend, but five didn’t get their visas in time; we’ll take this into account for the future)
• Countries represented: 24
• Partner companies represented: 65

But enough of stats already! Let me simply repeat that the conference was a 10/10 :)

Read on…

Hi folks!

After Budapest, next up – Istanbul. Out the window of my hotel room – a nice view, with the weather bearable ->

Nice bridge; not nice traffic:

I was looking forward to some tourisms the following day as it was a weekend; would the weather hold out?…

Read on…

The next stop on our whirlwind Euro-April-2024 tour – Budapest…

We’d had our Italian Partner Conference days before – in Milan, as mentioned (and the press loved it). Now it was time for our Global Partner Conference in the Hungarian capital. As per, we had guests fly in from every continent apart from Antarctica (of course) and also, alas – Australia (due to the geopolitical situation). The rest of the world however was in full attendance :) ->

…But I’ll come back to that topic. First, we needed to get from Italy to Hungary…

Read on…

Despite the extraordinarily uncharacteristic weather in Dubai, we still managed to hold our first ever international Cyber Immunity Conference there; hurray!

So, what is Cyber Immunity? (In case you don’t know; sorry if you do.) It’s our approach to building cybersystems that are secure-by-design and, as such, resilient against hacker attacks.

Actually, there’s a lot of talk about what it is. There’s talk about programming needing to be accurate and secure, and that we need secure processes of program code development, multilevel testing and cross-checks, and other such nonsense. But we believe that the main thing in security-by-design is the basic architecture of the operating system; specifically, its ability to protect even untrusted and vulnerable components/modules/applications, or, rather – block their abnormal behavior. We’ve lots more detailed information here, and those who want to dive even deeper into it are welcome to contact our experts, who can be reached at the same link.

As we hurtle ever deeper into the cyber-era, it’s clear that Cyber Immunity will be our savior. Alas, it’s still only one side of the coin in that cyber-era, for there are still the ever-increasing professionalism and numbers of hacker attacks from the other side of the barricades. However, I firmly believe that, out of the two, one side has no long-term future. Guess which one ). But for that scenario to materialize we need to learn how to build cybersystems that are secure-by-design to be able to fend off hacker attacks. That is the future of the cyberworld. And the other week, when we were down in the UAE, it was of course highly fitting to be able to talk about the cyberfuture in Dubai’s Museum of the Future ->

All righty. Off we pop to our conference…

Read on…

Hi folks!

Not long after returning from Indonesia, I was back on a plane and heading out once again – this time down to sunny Sochi. And I knew this was going to be a lucky trip because it started out so pleasantly: having settled into my seat on the plane, the Aeroflot flight attendant brought me a drink and, passing it to me, uttered the words, “Yevgeny Valentinovich, congratulations on the 256^th day of the year!” Seeing my puzzlement, she then let on reminded me that it was Programmer’s Day!

So south we flew – ending up not in Sochi itself but neighboring Adler. Now, as just mentioned, I knew from Sheremetyevo that this trip was gonna be a goodie, but check out this extra confirmation we were treated to upon arrival in Adler! ->

Read on…

As you’ll probably be able to tell from my slew of St. Petersburg-themed posts of late (architecture tour, rooftop tour, bucking Bronka tour, Kronstadt tour) – our week in the northern capital was a busy, action-packed one. But it wasn’t over just yet. Still to come was a Cyber Immunity conference followed by a nocturnal boat excursion along the city’s canals and Neva River. In this post, I’ll go over the former…

Secure by design software development – it’s a real buzz-term of late: everyone’s on about it, especially in North America and Europe. And everyone keeps insisting that it’s really needed – but no one goes on to say quite how. Meanwhile in northwest Moscow…

We’ve long been using the term “secure by design” – not merely as an empty catchword with little substance to back it up, but together with detailed instructions for implementing it – including at our conferences on all things secure-by-design. And just the other week we put on our latest such conference – up in St. Petersburg, and which we now call… ->

Read on…

Trumpets, drum roll, applause, cheering, whistling! Herewith, two bits of news for you: one good, the other – even better!…

First: this year we’ll be having our 15^th annual cybersecurity conference – the Security Analyst Summit (SAS). Fifteen? Oh my gone-where-has-the-time?!

Second: We’re finally back to an offline, aka – in-person, aka – face-to-face format, just like old times!

// In recent years this conference and indeed many others have been online.

Our tradition of annually bringing together top cybersecurity experts, academics and business folks from all around the world in a warm and pleasant location began way back in 2009. (Blimey – 2009 seems like yesterday; it’s a full 14 years ago!) Back then it was a lot smaller in size, but over the years it’s grown gradually to become one of the key yearly fixtures on the global cybersecurity-event calendar.

// For those who might want to review how SAS has developed over the years, check this tag out.

This year the warm and pleasant location will be Phuket in Thailand, where the conference will run from October 25 to 27. As usual we’ll be presenting, sharing and discussing the latest trends in cybersecurity (including recently uncovered APT attacks) plus cutting-edge achievements in the field of research and technology.

Spoiler: emphasis will be placed on the following topics:

• Protection of industrial infrastructure;
• ICS/OT security;
• Supply-chain and IoT attacks;
• Methods for tackling ransomware and the darknet;
• The unveiling of our new training course in reverse engineering and Ghidra – presented by our GReAT.

And we’ve already announced the call for papers! If you want to present your ground-breaking research or innovational solution, enter the respective info on the site…

So there you have it folks – SAS 2023: approaching fast. It’s going to be GReAT, it’s going to be interesting, it’s going to be super-informative, it’s going to be a super-success – as always!…

See you in Phuket!…

In closing – a quick SAS photo-retrospective…