The fourth annual CyberDay conference devoted to cybersecurity got underway at the Skolkovo Technopark on November 30, the 30th anniversary of the establishment of Computer Security Day.
Topics at this year’s event, aimed at establishing new technological approaches and solutions to ensuring information security at every level of a company’s business processes, include challenges and opportunities of the future of cybersecurity, the transformation of threats and evolution of defence methods, machine learning and artificial intelligence as new ways to ensure cybersecurity, and bug bounty programmes, under which users receive rewards to reporting bugs.
“With the proliferation of technologies such as the Internet of Things and cloud technologies, this topic will only become more relevant for all market players,” said Arkady Dvorkovich, chairman of the Skolkovo Foundation.
The two-day event also comprises the Cybersecurity Challenge, an international competition for innovation projects designed to protect the world from cyberthreats. The top three companies win financing of RUR 5 mio ($75K) from the Skolkovo Foundation, and access to advice from leading experts in this field.
Companies that have won the CyberDay Challenge in previous years have gone on to great success. In 2014, the competition was won by Wallarm, which provides AI-powered application security. Two years later, the company’s founders went on to win a place on the prestigious YCombinator accelerator programme in California.
CyberDay also includes the CTF (Capture the Flag) cup, which is taking place at Skolkovo for the second time. Twenty teams from all over the country – the winners of the regional stages of CTF, an information security competition for school pupils and students – will fight it out in the Technopark for the final.
“One of the teams protects the information assets, while the other attacks them,” said Sergei Khodakov, operations director within the Skolkovo Foundation’s IT cluster. “The winner is the team that manages to protect them the most effectively. The competition enables corporations to find talented specialists and promising teams with great potential for development both in Russia and abroad.”