Hundreds of delegates from more than 50 countries expected to attend

The Malta Information Technology Agency (MITA) has been selected to host one of the largest information security conferences for 2012. This year, the Forum of Incident Response and Security Teams (First) has chosen Malta for its 24th Annual Conference, which will be held between the 17 and 22 of June.

With less than a month to go, over 400 delegates from 52 countries have already confirmed their attendance for the five day conference, aptly themed “Security is not an island”. This year’s First conference will mainly focus on the practical aspects of security and incident response in light of the growing adoption of cloud computing and other distributed architecture. The main aim is to generate discussion amongst leading experts and security professionals from around the world who can share best practices and the latest thinking on information security.

The speaker line-up includes international experts from Nato, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Symantec, Deutsche Telecom, the European Network and Information Security Agency (ENISA), and Community Emergency Response Teams (CERTs) from several countries. The delegates will also be addressed by Hon. Austin Gatt, Minister for Infrastructure, Transport and Communications (MITC) and by Mr. Francisco García Morán, Director General, Directorate General Informatics (DIGIT), European Commission. On one of the days, experts from Mita will also chair a panel presentation about Information Security policy and management.

First, a non-profit organisation formed in 1990, brings together a variety of computer security incident response teams from government, commercial, and educational organisations with the aim of fostering cooperation and coordination in incident prevention, stimulate rapid reaction to incidents, and promoting information sharing among members and the community at large.

Talking about the scope of the conference, Chris Gibson, chairman of FIRST says, “Considering the inroads that mobile devices are making in our daily workplace, it is time for security to redefine itself in some fundamental way. In order to make this happen, it’s vital to bring the best in the business together to share experiences and help overcome challenges. First exists solely for this purpose, allowing experts to build confidential relationships across corporate disciplines and geographic boundaries, for the advancement of global security.”

Mita’s chairman, Dr Godwin Grima expressed his satisfaction that Mita is hosting such a prestigious event in Malta, “We are excited to have attracted such a prestigious international conference to our island at such an opportune time when online security is gaining so much attention. Information security has always been a priority for government and Mita. In 2010, Mita attained the recognised ISO 27001 security accreditation for its core services and since then we have extended the scope of this certification to almost all of our operations. We look forward in welcoming the delegates who will be coming to Malta to attend the FIRST conference and wish them all an enjoyable and productive conference.”