Infosecurity Europe Conference 2023; Securing risk whilst seeking and retaining talent

Recently PAC had the opportunity to attend the Infosecurity Europe conference in London. From the conversations PAC had with vendors at the conference and observing the range of stands, it is clear the industry is still understandably focused heavily on areas like identity and access management, endpoint protection, anti-malware, intrusion prevention and detection and data loss prevention. However, areas such as security-as-a-service, securing multi-hop AI across multi-clouds, and securing the edge for multi-cloud continue to be areas of growth opportunity. Though it was clear that the biggest challenge faced by organisations at the conference is how hard it is to hire talent in this space, whatever the sector, from retail, healthcare, and government to banking, the ability to hire cyber-security talent to address the threat profiles derived from the use of edge computing, AI, and multi-cloud continues in 2023 to be a real challenge.

In discussions with vendors at the event, PAC wanted to get their perspective regarding how they see the preference for ‘as-a-service’ style consumption models impacting the cyber-security industry. As the conference was predominantly solution-focused, given the vendors in attendance, there was still less focus on how cyber-security may become consumed through an end-to-end ‘security-as-a-service’ model, as has occurred with other segments of the tech stack. Many of the event's vendors reaffirmed that they still see significant demand for on-premises cyber-security solutions, but that ‘as-a-service’ models continue to grow in demand across all cyber-security segments. From PAC’s experience, cyber-security functions are still broadly associated within organisations as part of an overall IT function. Yet the needs organisations have regarding cyber-security continue to be business functional in nature to address areas like risk management and operational technology (OT). Securing these areas requires addressing cyber-security from a business, not an IT, function perspective.

Several of the discussions at the event confirmed what PAC hears from organisations regarding the overwhelming number of attacks being performed daily by external parties on them. Considering this broadly, cyber-security firms must continue to elevate their talking points to focus on the value of their solutions and services to address business function challenges rather than focusing predominantly on technological capabilities. It was evident from the conference that the demands of organisations spanning retail, manufacturing, financial services, and the public sector is requiring more targeted sector-specific service offerings and engagements due to their nuanced cyber-security needs. Each sector has a form of supply chain process, whether physical or digital, that requires interactions with one or more external parties to provide or consume business services. In recent years the fragility of supply chains across different industries has been exposed through the combination of the global pandemic and economic fallout. End-user organisations are investing heavily across Europe in improving their supply chains. Still, their interaction with external parties exposes each industry to new forms of business risk in which cyber-security solutions and services provide a key role. From the conversations had, PAC expects to see a greater focus across the cyber-security industry on vertical-specific capabilities, continued demand for zero-trust solutions and services, and the adoption of digital risk protection services by end-user organisations.

PAC had informative discussions and updates across a diverse group of cyber-security vendors representing a range of solutions and services at the conference. Of the conversations had, PAC would like to particularly thank the teams and those who helped arrange the sessions, from Cloudflare, Darktrace, F5, and Versa Networks. It is always great to get a chance to walk a conference floor and see what the common themes are across an industry. This event was a great opportunity to achieve this for cyber-security, and PAC looks forward to doing it again in-person next year.