NATIONAL cybersecurity specialist agency CyberSecurity Malaysia (CSM) announced that its annual conference this year will be held in Ipoh, Perak, from Nov 11-13. The theme is ‘Trusted and Secured Ecosystem.’
 
The Cyber Security Malaysia Awards, Conference and Exhibition 2014 (CSM-ACE 2014) is expected to attract 1,000 participants, including representatives from 37 organisations from 30 member countries of the World Trustmark Alliance (WTA), CSM said in a statement.
 
The conference is in line with the state government’s programme to transform Perak from a ‘tin mining state’ into a ‘Knowledge State’ by implementing five initiatives: K-Government, K-Economy, K-Infrastructure, K-Society and K-Worker – all of which could not move forward without cybersecurity, the agency said.
 
This is the first time that CSM-ACE is being held outside of Kuala Lumpur. CSM is an agency under the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation (MOSTI).
 
“This year, CSM-ACE reaches another milestone with its expansion to Perak, allowing the residents of [the sate] to benefit from the CSM-ACE training programme and participate in the main ACE (Awards, Conference and Exhibition) events,” said the ministry’s Secretary General Dr Noorul Ainur Mohd Nur.
 
The emphasis on CSM-ACE 2014 will be on securing e-business, as well as human capital capability and capacity building, said CSM chief executive officer Dr Amirudin Abdul Wahab.
 
“We will be running cybersecurity training for two weeks, beginning from Oct 28 until Nov 12. Some training will be held in Ipoh and the rest will be held in Kuala Lumpur. About 1,500 cybersecurity practitioners are expected to participate in the CSM-ACE2014 training programme,” he said.
 
“At the completion of the training programme, we would have produced an additional 1,500 ‘Knowledgeable Workers’ who are capable of defending their organisations from cyber-attacks and cybercrime,” he added.
 
There will also be two programmes for youth: The UTP Hax, an ethical hacking competition expected to attract 150-200 university students; and the National ICT Security Discourse, an inter-school debate competition expected to gather 500 secondary school students.