Internationally renowned cyber-security expert, Troy Hunt, has been unveiled by ScotlandIS as a keynote speaker at this year’s ScotSoft developers conference.
In his keynote speech the Australian based web security expert, Microsoft regional director and MVP will be drawing on his years of experience running the ethical data breach service ‘have I been pwned’,.
Hunt will look at what motivates attackers to dump data publicly, how it is sold, traded and redistributed and why. He will also share his experiences of interacting with the people attacking the systems, those who have been impacted and law enforcement agencies.
Polly Purvis, chief executive of ScotlandIS, organisers of ScotSoft, said: “We are delighted to be welcoming Troy to the Developers Conference. Cyber security is a hot topic and one that is becoming ever more important in our digital world. Whilst it’s a continuing challenge for technology businesses to ensure their products, systems and solutions have security built in at all stages, cyber security also provides huge opportunities for Scottish companies to develop new world-class solutions.
“The Scottish Government has developed a strategy to make the nation a world leader in cyber resilience by 2020. In order to get there, businesses need really to be well informed about security risks and prepared to deal with them so that they can make the most of digital technology.”
Recently published figures from Hewlett Packard found that cyber-crime is costing UK companies an average of £4.1 million per incident, a rise of £3 million since 2013. And a PWC report stated that 38% more security incidents were disclosed in 2015 than in the previous year, a rise of 56% in the theft of ‘hard’ intellectual property.
Purvis continued: “Troy will talk about first hand experience of major data breaches he has worked on and share lessons learned. He’ll shed light on how hackers operate and the weaknesses they exploit within organisations. The take-aways will be invaluable for all sizes of digital technology companies.”
“The Scottish digital technologies industry is thriving and that is reflected in the calibre of speakers at this year’s event. ScotSoft is the largest event of its kind in Scotland and it’s fantastic to see it going from strength to strength.”
The developers conference offers the opportunity for developers to meet, share knowledge and inspire each other.It is part of the wider ScotSoft programme, which includes the annual Global Forum event for decision makers in business, and a public sector briefing.
The theme for this year’s global forum is Think Big, Move Fast and will feature keynotes from Sam Ramji, CEO of Cloud Foundry, and Rob Jones, co-founder of FanDuel. Panel sessions will explore the question of how to build a global business and the challenges of scaling for growth and staying agile.
The evening sees the annual Young Software Engineer of the Year Awards taking place and speaking at the dinner will be special guest and Olympic gold medallist, Sir Chris Hoy.
ScotSoft 2016 is coming to the EICC in Edinburgh on Thursday 6 October. To find out more or book tickets, visit www.scotlandis.com/scotsoft