Cybersecurity Summit: North East, Here's What You Missed

As the dust settles on the first-ever Cybersecurity Summit: North East, we take a quick look back at the day.

Wednesday 11th of March saw some of the world’s leading technology and cybersecurity experts come to the region, with the likes of Cisco, Zerto, Milestone, Veeam and Axis to name a few, all in attendance.

The Cybersecurity Summit: North East was hosted at the famous Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art on the banks of the River Tyne, where over a 100+ cybersecurity enthusiasts and professionals gathered to be inspired and educated by some of the brightest minds in the industry.

Kicking thing’s off was the day’s compère, award-winning radio presenter, commentator and PR specialist, Justin Lockwood, getting the day started with an introduction to what was happening and where.

Security in the Digital World

The day’s first keynote speaker was Cisco’s UK CTO, Rob Price with his ‘Security in the Digital World’ talk, giving an overview of the digital landscape, highlighting how it affects you, and shares
valuable insights on how to apply security in the digital world.

Confessions of a Nerdy Hacker

Following Rob was Tom Johnson of Ingrata:Sec, a local ethical hacker and social engineer with his talk ‘Confessions of a Nerdy Hacker’.

Starting at a young age, Tom has always had a passion for hacking, right from the very moment he received his very own computer for Christmas as a child. With many ups and downs, from black hat activity in his early teens to working alongside the FBI under the National Police Chiefs Council, Tom will touch upon Ethics vs Morals, Social Engineering, Card Cloning & OSINT.

In addition to the talks on the main stage, breakout sessions in the Technology Hub and Workshops rooms went on across the day.

Cybersecurity: Lifecycle Management

Steven Kenny of Axis Communications gave attendees an insight into Cybersecurity: Lifecycle Management.

With the convergence of security technologies, it is important to understand the new Cybersecurity related challenges being faced by Physical security practitioners. One of the key components is the evaluations of your vendors cyber maturity. Learn to ask the right questions from within your supply chain and look beyond the traditional technical features within the technology and at a business policies and processes.

Veeam Demo Lab

Next up was Veeam’s Demo lab delivered by Nikolay Stankevich.

A technical workshop covering:

1. Veeam Backup & Replication:

Modular architecture
Agent / agent-less approach
IVMR, Explorers, DataLabs
Storage Integrations

2. Veeam One

Reporting capabilities + monitoring

3. Veeam Backup for Microsoft Office 365

4. Veeam Availability Orchestrator

Cybersecurity: A Cultural Perspective

Dynamo North East Director, Phil Jackman gave his ‘Cybersecurity: A Cultural Perspective’ talk on the main stage.

Cybersecurity is thought of as a technical problem but is it? How much does the culture of your organisation contribute to its vulnerability?

What Is Cyber Resilience?

Zerto took to the Technology Hub teach the audience on how to prepare for, respond to and recover from a cyber-attack.

Think You Have GDPR Covered? What Happens When a Breach Occurs?

Security Risk Management (SRM) is an information security consultancy and one of the UK’s leading breach investigators, handling payment card forensic investigations on a daily basis. Katie McMillan and Alan Batey of SRM took to the main stage to look beyond the legal ramifications of GDPR and demonstrate how a proactive approach to information security can reduce risk and enable a more effective response in the event of a breach.

How Secure Is Your Security System?

It’s ironic that your businesses “Physical Security System’s” could well be “Insecurity” that allows a back door to your corporate network. In this presentation Martin McGrath of Milestone Systems looked at the potential floors in IP based security systems, building management systems and more. They looked at live, legal websites that allow anyone to search for security systems that are connected to the web, demonstrating how bad password management is enabling websites to stream images from cameras quite legally.

When Bosses Panic

Comstor’s Andy Hook ran a workshop that helped attendees to understand the security threats to their network and how Cisco Security solutions provide Threat Hunting tools and intelligence. Now more than ever you need to provide network security before, during and after an attack. Utilising Cisco Threat Hunting reassures you that the tools and systems implemented are delivering the results. The session was split to a short positioning piece and then into a short guided hands-on workshop.

A Layered Approach to Cybersecurity

Unfortunately, there is no silver bullet to guarantee effective security, nor a single out-of-the-box solution that can ensure security across modern distributed networks. In order to defend against today’s threats, IT professionals must take a layered approach to their cybersecurity. Learn how companies are adopting this approach and what the tools are that they use to protect their data from Cybercriminals. Our very own Sales & Marketing Director, Steve O’Connell took to the main stage to give his ‘A Layered Approach to Cybersecurity’ talk.

Seeing Is Believing

Following the success of his earlier talk, the room was filled with enthusiastic onlookers of ethical hacker, Tom Johnsons workshop. Demonstrating live how easy it is to be breached. Utilising his ethical hacking simulator,
Tom covered things like data leakage, dumpster diving and OSINT.

Introducing Secure X

Cybersecurity experts, Farana Cheema and Luke Hebditch introduced and gave an overview of the all-new and latest offering from Cisco, Secure X. Not only did attendees learn what’s to come, but they also got an insight into threat hunting, what to expect and how to prepare to the forever-growing number of threats online.

The Happiest Hour

Clocking off for the day in style, the happiest hour was the perfect opportunity for attendees to network and rub shoulders with complimentary drinks to reflect on what was an awesome day.