TRAINING NOT EQUIPMENT KEY TO CYBER SECURITY, SAYS EXPERT

Jay Bavisi

One of the world’s leading specialists on cyber security and hacking told participants at Security and Defence Learning 2009 that “equipment-based security solutions” were “easy” to circumvent. Jay Bavisi, President of EC-Council, whose company employs “ethical hackers” to test the security systems of major organisations including, the Pentagon, said that better training was the key to eliminating the problem. He said it was vital to abandon the “equipment-based security mentality” and to focus instead on training and best practice.

“The IT infrastructure of any organisation has to be tested regularly through penetration testing and updated with improvements learnt from investigations of previous attacks to guarantee its functionality,” he said. His views are highlighted in a post-conference report, which is published today by the New Security Foundation.

Other speakers at the conference included the directors of training of INTERPOL, the Scottish Police and the Swiss Police, as well as experts on cyber security, virtual reality learning environments, maritime piracy, emergency planning and online training for medical emergencies, who all contributed fascinating presentations during a day of intense discussions between participants from 17 different countries.

Security and Defence Learning 2009 was praised by participants as “ excellent,” “huge networking potential” and “very informative”. The post-conference report highlights the key issues raised by expert speakers at the conference. These included:

• cyber security and the training urgently needed to deal with threats to equipment-based security systems
• strategic training reviews and how they are transforming defence training
• new training initiatives to deal with maritime piracy
• bridging the gap between academia and the private security sector
• developments in scenario-based training
• how to prepare medical personnel for large-scale emergencies
• new challenges in police training - virtual reality learning