ISACA UAE Chapter & Tahawultech, in partnership with the UAE Cybersecurity Council, hosted the second edition of the Infosec and Cybersecurity Congress 2024, at VOGO Abu Dhabi Resort and Spa. The event aimed to reassess the security narrative of companies as they hurtle into an unpredictable future.
Moderated by Anita Joseph, Editor at CPI Media Group, the awards ceremony took off with a brilliant opening keynote from H.E. Dr Mohammed Al Kuwaiti, Head of Cybersecurity, United Arab Emirates Government, where he highlighted the need for a collaborative approach to tackle cyber threats.
Shijeesh Shadevan, Senior Systems Engineer, HPE Aruba Networking took to the stage to deliver his keynote presentation. This was then followed by the first panel discussion on Risk Quantification: A new paradigm for CISO’s Approach moderated by Bharat Rajgangar, Former President of ISACA.
He was joined on the panel by:
- Sajin Shivdas, Security Specialist, Family Development Foundation
- Zaheer Shaikh, Chief Information Security Officer, Al Maryah Community Bank
- Taskeen khan, Chief Information Officer with a leading Payment Gateway Provider
- Osama Salah Ramadan, Senior Information Security Architect with an Abu Dhabi Government entity.
Darren Thomson, Vice-President & Chief Technology Officer (Field) at Commvault took to the stage for a keynote presentation. A second panel discussion titled Security Governance: Best Practices for Board-Level Engagement, moderated by Bharat Rajgangar, highlighted effective strategies for aligning cybersecurity initiatives with board priorities and decision-making.
The panelists included:
- Jinson Pappachan, Head of Information Security & ICT with an Abu Dhabi-based entity
- Marco Fey, Senior Manager Data Privacy and Regulatory Compliance at Mediclinic Middle East
- Mohammed H. AlAbbadi, Group CISO at Fertiglobe
- Nitin Shingari, cybersecurity expert
A third panel brought to light how emerging technologies such as Deepfake & AI impacted the threat-security landscape. The panelists for this included:
- Osama Abbas, VP-Internal Audit at Astratech
- Sagar Sethi, SVP & Head of Information Security Risk, Governance and International Security, First Abu Dhabi Bank.
- Ankit Satsangi, Director-Enterprise Development, Beeah Group
The highlight of the event was the CISO Infosec & Cyber Risk Leadership Awards 2024 which honoured cybersecurity decision makers and innovators forging an indelible mark on the security landscape with their vision and know-how.
The award winners are:
- Sagar Sethi- First Abu Dhabi Bank
- Osama Salah Ramadan- Abu Dhabi Government entity
- Nitinkumar Shingari
- Tushar Vartak- RAK Bank
- Zaheer Mubarak Shaikh- Al Maryah Community Bank
- Nasser Al Neyadi- Ministry of Interior, Government of United Arab Emirates
- Talal Albalas- Abu Dhabi Quality and Conformity Council (QCC), Government of Abu Dhabi
- Venu Sriraj- Magnati
- Anoop Kumar Paudval- Gulf News, Al Nisr Publishing LLC
- Irshad Mohammed- Burjeel Holdings
- Hadi Anwar- CPX
