Sophia Antipolis, 18 October 2024
One of the event highlights of the year - the ETSI Security Conference – has closed its doors at the end of expert discussions on a range of cybersecurity standardization topics.
195 onsite attendees enjoyed presentations across multiple sessions, over three and a half days, as well as networking opportunities at the breaks - extending into the evening - during the ETSI hosted social events.
The first day of the conference returned to a main topic of previous year’s agendas, with a focus on developments on an International level. In his keynote on the status of AI Security, Rob van der Veer gave his perspective on the on-going global discussion, highlighting gaps and challenges yet to be fully met by standards developing organizations.
Allan Friedman, of the US Government’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency dropped the SBOM acronym into the Global session – describing how the Software Bill Of Materials has emerged as a key building block for assured security in the supply of software, identifying whether products are affected by known vulnerabilities.
Other day one highlights included an early dive into the impact of regulation, a look at securing AI and the challenges facing the roll out of EU digital wallets to citizens by 2028.
The morning of day two featured sessions on the impact of standards on fraud prevention, keeping 5G transactions secure, eSignature & e-Payments and a look at the Payment Services Directive 2 (PSD2).
The day’s keynotes featured David Rogers, the GSMA FASG Chair, who explored the 'Janus problem' and the importance of legacy migration, and Galina Pildush (Palo Alto Networks) looking at the challenges of Protecting Children from impersonation and other associated online threats.
The day also covered the societal impact of technology on end users, including a look at the challenge - being met head on - to ensure that coercive control, abuse and disinformation are kept away from vulnerable people of all ages.
The use of IoT by consumer goods & services industries featured in Tuesday afternoon’s session. Several viewpoints were shared on how getting cybersecurity into devices before they are allowed into the supply chain is key. The session looked at the legal requirements, considering the impact of Regulation, Legislation and Standards on manufacturers.
Day 3, Wednesday, saw discussions around the key standards projects for Quantum Safe Cryptography and how the industry is keeping ahead of the quantum criminals.
A highlight of the session was a keynote by Dustin Moody (NIST), with a live laser demo of quantum wave principles - Seeing is believing and this was a great demonstration of a complex topic. The morning session ended with a lively panel discussion on the topic of what is "reasonable cybersecurity”.
The highly topical question of ‘5G to 6G - Evolution or Revolution?’ was tackled in the afternoon of day 3, looking at the 6G challenges and opportunities from a security perspective.
Presentations covered confidentiality, privacy, digital identity, explainable AI (XAI)… amongst other areas.
The final day explored the successes but did not ignore the failures of regulation & standardization to secure technologies, including smartphone, IoT, transport, public safety and critical communications aspects.
Alex Leadbeater, summing up on behalf of the Programme Committee members, looked at a cross-section of the topics of the three and a half days of the conference. A variety of areas: Standards gaps, future priorities, making them impactful, the management of legacy, how to grow engagement and how to deal with next generation threats (including the interchange of fraud and cyber security)… are all topics brimming with security challenges and opportunities.
The discussions this week will serve as a catalyst for further dialogue in the security community, as they guide ETSI standardization priorities for future cyber-secure networks.
For more detail:
This week’s presentations are online.
Five short play interviews were conducted, featuring experts attending #ETSISec2024 in Sophia Antipolis this week.
See the interviews on our YouTube channel:
- Allan Friedman on SBOM
- Nataliya Stanetsky on Mobile Handset Theft Prevention
- Matt Campagna on Quantum Safe Cryptography standards
- Hollie Hennessy on IoT security
- Galina D. Pildush on Protecting The Children
Day 4 - Navigating IoT Security Regulations, with Zahra Khani, Keysight Technologies