Last days of December, 2023 ends and it is usually the time to take stock of the year that is coming to an end but I am going against the trend and want to throw myself into 2024 with some predictions (few!) and with a small list of world events in which it might be interesting to participate (and I will try to do so).
Let's start with the predictions that I hope will be contradicted by the facts but I don't count on them.
First of all, considering the great general movement in favor of cloud development in Italy I expect growth in the sector and in particular a growth in safety problems and accidents, this is because despite the technological push, in my opinion, the human and training aspect continues to be neglected.
My second prediction concerns theArtificial intelligence. Here too I see black clouds full of accidents on all fronts. There is still too little awareness among companies and public administrations and many managers are driven towards AI by the popularity of some tools (such as ChatGPT). There is no ability to plan the introduction of AI in both the public and private sectors and furthermore there is still no awareness or discussion on what will happen to the workers who will no longer be necessary as they can be replaced with AI tools, I am talking for example about switchboard operators, but also artists, cinema workers and so on. Robots were once designed to replace humans in dangerous and repetitive ("alienating") jobs, but now?
The third and final prediction concerns the phenomenon of ransomware. Again I see clouds on the horizon. Clouds brought by the often inconsistent push towards digitalisation. We should start asking ourselves some questions before digitizing. One of these questions should be: if we digitize all processes, even critical ones, do we have the ability to quickly turn back in case of problems? Do we have an alternative technology to digital that we can use to create redundancy? Uncomfortable question, I know, but someone should ask themselves even the uncomfortable questions.
Having said that, let's move on to a small list of world events to try and participate in. The order is by date, not by importance:
- SANS Cyber Threat Intelligence Summit & Training. Between January 29th and February 5th, Washington DC.
- Gartner Security and Risk Management Summit. Between February 26th and 27th, in Mumbai, India.
- Black Hat Asia. Between 16 and 19 April, Marina Bay Sands, Singapore.
- RSA Conference. Between May 6th and 9th, at the Moscone Center, San Francisco. California.
- 45th IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy. Between May 20th and 23rd, San Francisco. California.
- Positive Hack Days 12. Between May 23rd and 26th, in Moscow, Russia.
- 36th Annual FIRST Conference. Between June 9th and 14th, in Fukuoka, Japan.
- AWS: re:Inforce. Between June 10th and 12th. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
- Black Hat USA. Between August 3 and 8, in Las Vegas, Nevada.
- DEF CON 32. Between August 8 and 11, in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Why participate?
There are an infinite number of reasons. I believe that participating in an event of the magnitude of those indicated is an unmissable opportunity to deepen one's knowledge and form collaborative relationships with great professionals. As president of SICYNT extension I will do everything to ensure that someone from the association can participate and come back to tell us what they saw.
To learn more:
- https://strobes.co/top-10-must-attend-cybersecurity-conferences-in-2024/...
- https://www.cybersecuritydive.com/spons/the-top-cybersecurity-events-and...
- https://www.forbes.com/sites/bernardmarr/2023/10/11/the-10-biggest-cyber...
