Northstar

Feature Cover Story 22 MAR-APR 2020 MEETINGS & CONVENTIONS MCMAG-ASIA.COM M ICE planners have access to, and continually transfer, vast amounts of sensitive information, often including the personal and !nancial information of employees and attendees. Keeping this data secure is no easy feat. Mr Sanjay Aurora, MD of cybersecurity !rm, Darktrace, assesses the current landscape with M&C Asia. What dangers are planners unaware of? MICE planners have access to, and continually transfer, vast amounts of sensitive information, often including the personal and !nancial information of employees and attendees. Securing this data is no simple feat. Today, it is fundamental that MICE organisations are accountable for the security of these databases, which often have sensitive IP that could easily be monetised or leveraged against corporations. Often, MICE planning facilitates the concentration of many high-level executives and decision-makers who have privileged access to larger corporate digital infrastructure. It is imperative that MICE planners have an awareness of how these insider connections could be exploited by naive or even malicious employees, and retain the potential to cause serious reputational and !nancial damage to organisations and the industry at large. How could an attack disrupt meeting planners' business? In 2020, ransomware will come to the fore and increasingly target public and corporate digital infrastructures AI Platform – a holistic approach to cyber defence that covers vulnerabilities in the network, cloud, SaaS, email, and IoT environments. Fundamentally, Darktrace's Cyber AI detects and autonomously responds to emerging threats before damage is caused, and is relied on today by over 3,000 organisations globally. Powered by machine learning, Darktrace AI forms a nuanced and evolving understanding of the 'pattern of life' of the devices and users on a network, and uses this understanding to detect and autonomously !ght back against cyber-threats as they emerge. This world-leading approach is analogous to the human immune system in that it intuitively understands and actively enforces what is 'normal' and 'abnormal' on a network. The only way to tackle these developments is to delegate the identi!cation and response of cyber- threats to powerful machine algorithms – allowing Cyber AI to !ght back autonomously at machine-speed. of all sizes – potentially crippling the operations of any one business in a matter of seconds. The MICE industry is especially susceptible to ransomware that aims to ex!ltrate sensitive IP for easy monetisation. What's more, the very nature of the MICE industry aims to bring high-level executives together, an opportunity for networking where malicious actors could swipe information to create advanced and contextualised phishing campaigns that exploit the assumed trust of c-level attendees among their employees and clients. How can the MICE industry prepare for cyber-attacks? For MICE organisations, achieving visibility over internal user tra$c and adopting systems that act autonomously to defend networks should be primary concerns. Increasingly, cyber-attacks are novel and unpredictable, therefore legacy technologies based on rules and signatures will do little in the e"ort to defend against them. Companies must take a holistic approach to defence: cloud, SaaS, email, IoT and the network are all points of vulnerability. Increasingly, security teams are overwhelmed by the speed, scale and number of cyber-attacks they are facing, and need AI to respond for them. As attacks become increasingly machine-speed, machine-speed responses are becoming crucial, and not just a nice- to-have. What does your firm do to mitigate this? Darktrace o"ers a world-leading Cyber By 2025, the global MICE industry is predicted to generate US$1.5 trillion – a big incentive for cyber-criminals looking to ransom stolen databases and exploit connections to large digital environments WORDS PATRICIA WEE Cybercrime – hidden threats "One of the greatest challenges facing MICE coordinators is gaining accurate and comprehensive visibility of the total scope of their working digital environments." – SANJAY AURORA, MD, DARKTRACE

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