Infosecurity Europe: Its History, Value, and Future

Image

On June 7-9, information security professionals from all over the world gathered together at Infosecurity Europe 2016, one of The State of Security‘s top 11 conferences in information security. Anyone who’s attended Infosecurity Europe knows how difficult it is to choose which presentations they’d like to see. It’s simply impossible to attend all of them! With that being said, we covered several notable presentations and offered a quick recap of our thoughts for Day One, Day Two, and Day Three of the conference. We also created a slideshare that provides additional information about some of the discussions at this year’s event: But let’s be honest. To truly appreciate the content of the talks above, we need to look at Infosecurity Europe as an institution of the global information security community and appreciate how the event has evolved over the years. This effort requires that we look back at the conference’s history, value, and future.

History

Infosecurity Europe is one of the leading information security conferences in Europe. It began back in 1996. The conference forms just one part of the triad that is Infosecurity Group, a business unit operated by Reed Exhibitions UK Ltd. which invests in driving the information security community forward.

Image

The Infosecurity Europe brand tackles this ongoing objective by hosting conferences for infosec professionals. Infosecurity Magazine, the second part of Infosecurity Group, does its part by providing professionals in the information security industry with print and digital articles as well as free educational content. Finally, the Global Executive Network enables senior information security executives and business leaders to network with one another and make new contacts. Infosecurity Europe is held each year over a three-day period in early June at the Olympia London in London, UK.

Value

More than 17,500 security professionals from over 80 countries attended Infosecurity Europe 2016. There’s little wonder why. The conference’s presentations and panel discussions provided attendees access to more than 160 hours of complimentary conference sessions as well as more than 360 vendors, service providers, and thought leaders. A deeper look into the conference’s visitor audience reveals that the majority of attendees to Infosecurity Europe are employees of IT distribution companies; workers at IT hardware, software, manufacturers and suppliers; finance/banking/insurance professionals; and government professionals. As shared by Global Events List, just under a quarter (23.3 percent) of attendees to Infosecurity Europe 2013 worked at large organizations that employ 5,000 staff members. About another quarter (24 percent) consisted of senior executives, while 54 percent of visitors said they were general IT/IS management, other management, and technical specialists. 19 percent reported they were consultants.

Image

Bruce Schneier To appeal to those demographics, Infosecurity Group takes great care in creating each conference’s speaker line-up. Respected security expert Bruce Schneier also spoke at the 21^st iteration of Infosecurity Europe. His presentation focused around the themes of privacy and the Internet of Things (IoT). For a list of other individuals who have helped make Infosecurity Europe—and information security more generally—what it is today, please see the conference’s Hall of Fame page.

Future

Infosecurity Europe’s 22^nd iteration is planned for June 6-8, 2017, so there is no end in sight for this mainstay of information security. And why would there be? More than ever, conferences are the way forward for security professionals to collaborate and share threat information with one another. Indeed, by learning from and debating one another, we have the greatest chance of protecting ourselves and other users against the threats of tomorrow. For information on where you can network with other security professionals throughout the year, please see our infosec conference guide here.