Covid-19 and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine have changed the IT environment to such an extent that it will never be the same. What risks do we face and what scenarios can we expect to unfold? Participants at the Security 2022 conference on international cybersecurity also pondered this.
After a two-year hiatus enforced upon us by the coronavirus pandemic, we managed to organize the 28th Security 2022 conference. This is the largest independent event in the Czech Republic to focus on cybersecurity and took place on Tuesday 7 June in Prague.
“We are glad that this year we managed to successfully build on previous years,” said Igor Čech, marketing manager at AEC, adding: “We are pleased that we could once again meet everyone in person, and I really appreciate the big turnout.”
The lectures, covering the most topical cyber security issues of the day, were divided into two parallel sessions. They were attended by 580 registered participants. This year’s event was dominated by topics related to Covid-19 and, in particular, the war in Ukraine.
This conflict changes many of the rules. Global development scenarios are unclear, the business environment is unstable, and governments are increasingly willing to resort to tough regulations. The time when everyone did business with everyone else is over, and corporate leaders are being forced to face risks that are escalating in ways never before imagined.
In their presentation, the experts from Gartner more or less outlined this framework of current events and then proposed four possible scenarios for future developments in political and economic relations. Unfortunately, none of them even remotely envisages a return to the stability of previous years.
The packed hall also listened to our colleague, Ukrainian security specialist Yehor Safon, who filled us in on the little-known circumstances of the cyber war between Russia and Ukraine, described sophisticated attack vectors, as well as those defence techniques that have proven to be effective.
This year, 27 speakers from the Czech Republic and abroad presented their papers. The presentation by Israeli expert Paul Moskovich, who vividly described the tale of an unprepared company that failed to cope with the fatal consequences of a cyber-attack, received well-deserved attention.
So, which lectures did the Security 2022 conference participants vote for most? Firstly, the one by cryptologist Tomáš Rosa from Raiffeisenbank about the fundamental weaknesses in the security of the eRouška app, where it turned out that not all aspects played in our, the users’, favour.
Then there was the presentation by Robert Šuman, in which the head of ESET's research laboratory gave a detailed mapping and a timeline of the activities of three major pro-Russian hacker groups and their role in attacks on Ukrainian IT infrastructure.
Last but not least, the presentation by security specialists Lukáš Renec and Katarína Galanská from our company grabbed the audience’s attention. In their presentation, they gave listeners an entertaining insight into the preparation and course of a simulated social engineering attack on large banking houses in the Czech Republic.
“We are delighted with the evaluation and the feedback, it is clear that the conference met its purpose,” said Igor Čech and concluded, “The quality of the lectures, the interesting discussions and the overall friendly and shared atmosphere all contributed greatly to this. We would like to focus even more on networking in the future.”
