The second annual Security Serious Week, sponsored by Mimecast, Netskope and NETconsent, will take place during European Cyber Security Month in October and kicks off with a brand new conference hosted by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport in London on the morning of 3rd October 2016. The one-off event will bring together some of the country’s brightest minds in cyber security and cover topics such as how the UK’s top CISOs tackle security awareness, coping with the ever-changing legal landscape and how (and why) UK companies should be thinking like hackers. The second day of Security Serious Week sees the UK’s “unsung heroes” in cyber security honoured at the Security Serious Unsung Heroes Awards ceremony in London on the 4th October.
“Cyber security has never been more important and has a huge part to play in the continuity and resiliency of our country as a whole,” said Yvonne Eskenzi, Director of Eskenzi PR and lead organiser of Security Serious Week. “We want Security Serious Week to not only help make the UK plc more security savvy, but also to recognise the people who work tirelessly in the background day after day in our critical infrastructure, transport, banks, shops, universities and public services to provide an incredible service to our national safety, yet often go unnoticed.”
The conference and awards programme are set to reel in some of the UK’s biggest cyber security leaders, such as Dr Robert Coles, CISO, GlaxoSmithKline; Avtar Sehmbi, Head of Information Security and Risk Management, HSBC; Thom Langford, CISO, Publicis Groupe and Ian Glover, president of CREST.
“There are incredible individuals striving to keep the services we rely on safe from cyber criminals, but there simply are not enough of them and those that we have need the aptitude to maintain their capabilities in an environment where there are constant and rapid changes to threats,” said Ian Glover, president of CREST, the not-for profit accreditation and certification body for the technical information security industry. “As an industry, we need to tackle the skills shortage head on and encourage the very best people to choose cyber security as a career path – an extremely, challenging, exciting and rewarding one. This is why initiatives such as Security Serious Week are so important in raising awareness of cyber security issues and also to promote the opportunities available.”
The Security Serious Unsung Heroes Awards are designed to give the professionals in IT security the recognition that they deserve for (often) going above and beyond the call of duty and saving their organisations from the likes of hackers, malware and virus infections. While most awards in the IT sector tend to focus on technology, these will honour the individuals and teams behind the technology. With categories such as Godfather of Security, CISO Supremo, Security Leader, Mobile Mogul and Cloud Security Superhero, around 20 awards will be given on the night compered by Clive Room. The awards have been backed by industry leaders including: Mimecast, Netskope, AlienVault, gsk, Publicis Groupe, CrowdStrike, Lastline, Proofpoint, whiteCryption, Imperva, Acumin, Canon, Smile on Fridays and Eskenzi PR.
Security Serious Week, which runs from 3rd October to 7th October will also feature free webinars in association with IT Security Guru, hosted by cyber-security experts to encourage others to become more security savvy. Last year over 2,500 people participated and this year the organisers are hoping to exceed the number of webinars. To find and register for a webinar, click here
To participate in Security Serious Week please visit www.securityserious.com
