This week it is Mobile World Congress, the biggest event in the mobile industry calendar. If you’re interested in meeting for a chat or just hearing about mobile and IoT security & privacy, I’ll be at the following places!
Sunday 25th February 6th GSMA IoT Summit
13:00-17:30
NH Collection Barcelona Tower Hotel
Copper Horse annual security dinner at a secret location in Barcelona
21:00-late (tweet me or message if you want to come along)
Monday 26th February
4YFN – “Hidden Threats and Opportunities to my Business”
Panelist: “Spotlight – How Data and Cyber Security can make or break a new business?”
16:15-17:15 4YFN (at the old Fira), Fira Barcelona Montjuïc, Av. Reina Maria Cristina
Tuesday 27th February
IoT Tuesday, hosted by Cellusys, supported by JT Group and the IoT Security Foundation
17:00-late Cellusys event – I’ll be giving an opening talk on behalf of the IoT Security Foundation, which will be: “The Ticking Clock”: why security in IoT is critical to how you run your business. Tweet me if you want to attend.
Wednesday 28th February
16:30-17:30
Why Should we Trust your Digital Security?
Me having a fireside chat in this session with Jean Gonie, VEON: Data, Consumer Protection and the GDPR
Auditorium 3, Hall 4 (on-site at MWC)
I’ll be at a few other events and will generally be around and about the MWC main site all week so please feel free to get in contact. Speaking of Barcelona, we’re holding our next training, “Foundations of IoT Security” in May in the city. More details and sign-up can be found on the IoTSF website.
I’ve been running a cyber session on behalf of UKTI and BIS for the past few years. The event has been an increasing draw as a hub for security and privacy discussion at Mobile World Congress. We have an absolutely stellar line-up this year, across three days of lunchtime sessions and I’m really looking forward to MCing! If you’re around at MWC, come along to the UKTI stand in Hall 7 (7C40) at the times below.
#MWC15
Cyber Security in the Mobile World: MWC Lunchtime Seminar Series
In the fourth year of our MWC Cyber Security in the Mobile World event, the topic remains at the top of the headlines. 2014 saw a large number of attacks which were both news-grabbing and serious. Are things getting better or are they going to get worse?
Securing the Internet of Things
Mon 2nd March
12:00 to 12:40
Location: Hall 7, UKTI stand 7C40
The Internet of Things (IoT) has exploded in the last year. Many machine-to-machine (M2M) and IoT devices being purchased by consumers and being implemented within technology from cars to chemical plants, are we adequately prepared to handle the increased cyber risk?
Introduction:
• Richard Parris, Intercede: Introduction to the Cyber Growth Partnership
Keynote speakers:
• Richard Parris, Intercede: The Role of SMEs in Securing IoT
• Marc Canel, Vice President of Security, ARM: Hardware security in IoT
• Svetlana Grant, GSMA: End to End IoT Security
Mobile Cyber Security for Businesses
Tues 3rd March
12:45 to 13:25
Location: Hall 7, UKTI stand 7C40
The Prime Minister recently said that 8 of 10 large businesses in Britain have had some sort of cyber attack against them. With a big increase in the number of mobile devices, how can businesses defend themselves, their data and their employees? What cyber standards are being developed and what enterprise security mechanisms are being put into the devices themselves?
4 person keynote panel, moderated by David Rogers:
• ETSI, Adrian Scrase, CTO
• Samsung, KNOX, Rick Segal, VP KNOX Group
• Good Technologies, Phil Barnett, Head of EMEA
• Adaptive Mobile, Ciaran Bradley
Innovation in Cyber Security: Secure by Default
Wed 4th March
11:40 to 12:20
Location: Hall 7, UKTI stand 7C40
Our speakers will get straight to the point by giving 3 minute lightning talks on a variety of innovations in cyber security.
1. Symantec, IoT Security, Brian Witten
2. W3C, Web Cryptography, Dominique Hazaël-Massieux
3. NCC Group, Innovative Security Assessment Techniques, Andy Davis
4. Plextek, Automotive Security, Paul Martin, CTO
5. SQR Systems, End-to-End Security for Mobile Networks, Nithin Thomas, CEO
6. CSIT, Queens University, Belfast, Philip Mills & David Crozier
7. Trustonic, Your Place or Mine? Trust in Mobile Devices, Jon Geater, CTO
8. NquiringMinds, Picosec: Secure Internet of Things, Nick Allott, CEO
9. Blackphone, Blackphone update, Phil Zimmermann
10. GSMA, The Future of Mobile Privacy, Pat Walshe
Another year and we’re back again. This year’s Copper Horse security dinner will take place as usual at a secret location in Barcelona on the 23rd of February. With some of the world’s leading minds in mobile security present, it’s the hottest ticket for Sunday night. Contact us if you’d like to attend, there’s a limited number of places. As always, we split the bill at the end.
This is far too early for the dinner and in the wrong location…
Happy New Year everyone! That must mean that the entire mobile industry has to start going into overdrive for Mobile World Congress in February in Barcelona. Over at linkedin, there is a pretty useful thread for discussing what kind of tips and suggestions you’d give first time attendees to MWC.
Parties aside, my best personal advice for Mobile World Congress is actually about eating. Having been to Barcelona for every MWC since it moved there, I’ve worked out what is best for me and really what is not good at all for me. I’ve described it to some people as doing a year’s worth of meetings in one week. It is pretty intense – you definitely work hard and play hard. In my experience, you walk about a million miles (maybe just slightly less), drink far too much alcohol and go to bed way too late for a couple of hours sleep before doing it all again the next day, all without eating much more than a couple of bites of tapas and maybe a Jamon baguette. The biggest thing that has at least helped me sleep better and feel better is to address the food problem head-on.
Not sure how healthy this sandwich is Mr. Messi…
Here’s my addition to to the thread:
One thing that I’d add, make sure you eat properly and heathily. It is a crazy week of early mornings, late nights and lots of walking. Also, if you’re like most of the attendees and therefore not ‘entirely’ tee-total, you may need to soak up some of that booze 😉
It can be difficult to get food during a really hectic week and what food is on-site is usually limited. Mostly jamon / spanish tortilla baguettes, crisps and maybe some fairly rank salads (unless you can eat in the Gold pass areas). The queues at lunchtimes are mental, so if you are going to grab something, try and get it early on and stick it in your bag for later if you can.
Don’t expect to be eating well at any of the parties unless you can get by on a couple of cocktail snacks and a bit of Paella.
As someone who needs food to keep me going, I generally try to eat as follows each day:
* a healthy, large breakfast with some fruit * get some early coffee on-site * make time for lunch – I now resist the temptation to skip it and fill it with a meeting * eat something substantial if I can early on in the evening that isn’t just tapas at a party
Hope this helps!
I’d be interested in any other thoughts people have on how to eat properly at MWC. Anyway, with that slight detour I have to get back to judging entries for the GMAs and preparing our own Copper Horse trip out there!
Copper Horse’s Mobile Security Intern Matt Williams experienced Mobile World Congress for the first time this year. Here’s his write-up on what went on out there:
It was that time of year again. When everyone in the mobile industry gathered in one place to exhibit, network and discover the latest updates in the ever-growing world of mobile phones. As usual, the Copper Horse team were there, from the Friday before the event to the Friday after. And here is a short summary of our experience of the largest ever Mobile World Congress!
The word “ever-growing” used earlier is a more than appropriate term to describe the current state of the mobile industry, as was evident by the scale of this year’s event. Mobile World Congress had moved from its previous home, the Fira Montjuic, across the city of Barcelona (the congress’s current and future host until at least 2018), to the substantially larger Fira Gran Via exhibition centre. The 2013 event consisted of nine Walmart sized halls, six of which were for exhibition stands, with the other three carrying out the roles of registration, a conference village and a theatre district. To walk from the Southern Entrance at Hall 1 to the Northern Entrance at Hall 8 would typically take 15-20 minutes; such was the enormity of the occasion. Consequently, a record 65,000 people were expected to attend (the final totals were over 72,000!). But prior to the new venue even being looked at, the Copper Horse team had a busy weekend of events to attend and people to meet.
The Weekend Before
After some initial settling in on the Friday and Saturday, consisting of networking, tapas tasting at local bars and collecting our badges, we headed up to the Nou Camp, home of Barcelona FC for a once in a lifetime trip to see them play. Along with some other industry colleagues we watched them beat Seville 2-1 in a hard fought game.
Copper Horse’s team were now ready to attend the first mobile-related event of the week – Innovation on the Fringe at MOB (Makers of Barcelona). Hosted by Heroes of the Mobile Fringe, Innovation on the Fringe is the speed-dating equivalent of mobile app demonstrations – time-wise at least! App demonstrators had two minutes to present their ideas, with a further two minutes of questions from an audience containing potential investors. A wide variety of ideas were presented – from neighbourhood change to online authentication with pictures.
Copper Horse’s main role in the event was not to witness the app presentations, but to give out an inaugural award. Namely, the Dead Technology Award – A golden calculator trophy presented to the technology that has either died off or flopped spectacularly in the past year.
Essentially the tech equivalent of the Golden Raspberry Award (Razzie) for Worst Film, attendees at the fringe event were given the opportunity to vote from a shortlist of nine nominees via SMS. At the end of the event, it was decided by the audience that Sony Ericsson’s demise as it was finally subsumed into Sony was to be the first ever winner of this prestigious title. And so it came to be that Sony Ericsson was propelled into Silicon Heaven (as they say in Red Dwarf). So congratulations (or should that be condolences?) to the now ‘deceased’ Sony Ericsson! RIP. You can watch the video of the shortlist below:
It was a quick dash for some filmed interviews, then back into town. Later on in the evening, it was our turn to become the host, as Copper Horse welcomed security experts from around the world to attend a dinner – now a well-established MWC tradition! The opportunity to talk with other experts in the field was a hugely interesting experience and the event took place at one of Barcelona’s top restaurants. This year’s security dinner provided a great insight into the week ahead at the Fira. And no sooner had the weekend arrived, then it was time for the congress to officially begin.
Monday
The primary focus of the first day of Copper Horse’s MWC was the Mobile Security Forum sessions held in the Theatre District of Hall 8. Security sponsors that included AdaptiveMobile, antivirus vendor AVG and network solutions provider Juniper Networks all held individual talks and panel discussions in relation to the world of mobile security. The topics debated were:
–Securing the Borderless Network
–Consumer Mobility and Privacy: Monetization without Alienation
–Offense or Defense: Security in an LTE World
The evening saw a great event hosted by Box. More security, good Tapas and red wine rounded off an excellent first proper day of MWC.
Tuesday
On Tuesday morning, Copper Horse Director David Rogers chaired the UKTI event “Cyber Security in theMobile World” – a seminar that identified what is meant by “Cyber Security” for mobile devices and networks, what is on the horizon in the context of threats, how genuine the threats are and what security methods could be put into place to make businesses and consumers more secure.
Following on from this were the Global Mobile Awards – We’ve already had the technology equivalent of the Razzies, now it was the turn of the best of the best to be recognised in the mobile industry equivalent of The Oscars. Over six hundred entries and nominees were in contention for the thirty-seven honours. Copper Horse judged in the ‘Best Mobile Safeguard & Security Products and Services’ category, which was won by Adaptive Mobile and Syniverse.
Among the other awards given out were Best Smartphone to the Samsung Galaxy S3, Best Mobile Tablet to Google and Asus for the Nexus 7 and the Judges Choice for Best Overall Mobile App to Waze, a mobile navigation app that allows users to add and see real-time traffic updates. The awards, hosted by comedian David Walliams, concluded, after which the team wound down the day at the annual Northern Ireland Beers and Scottish Whiskies – networking events held in close proximity to one another, in the UK section of the Hall 7 exhibitors. Wednesday
Wednesday was a busy day for the team, with lots of meetings and events. It featured an early morning start at the MEF Kaspersky Breakfast Briefing. This session focused on the latest threats to app users, highlighting the most recent developments in mobile malware. A roundtable discussion and a series of presentations highlighting the scope of the threats took place. The main point to note was that the threat of mobile malware has never been greater, as there were approximately 4000 cases of it reported in 2012, of which 93% were on the Android platform. One of the primary reasons for the large number of cases being on Android devices, in addition to the fact that it is such an open operating system, was that many users ran older versions of the platform, which no longer had the necessary patches available. Overall, the breakfast was a very interesting event to attend.
In the afternoon, the GSMA’s Pat Walshe hosted an event ‘Mobile App Privacy: What’s Your View?’ with speakers from AT&T, Rovio (the makers of Angry Birds), Mozilla and the App Developers Alliance. There was some robust discussion, but there was a clear view that app developers need to focus on their own software quality and pay attention to security more seriously. There was also a good discussion on how small companies suddenly have to deal with regulators and lawsuits and what that growth experience is like.
After attending a few networking events in the evening, the day concluded with one of the best Barcelona parties – Swedish Beers. It’s a great chance to connect with other people as the week at MWC begins to draw to a close, particularly if you find one of the sponsors, who has the free drink tokens!
Thursday
Thursday was the quietest day of the four during MWC. Whilst some visitors had seen what they had come to see and departed Barcelona, there were still plenty of events to explore and exhibitors to meet. Mobile Monday operated a continuous run of presentations, discussions and talks until the congress reached its 4pm closing time, whilst WIPJam saw mobile developers meet for a busy day of storytelling, pitches and demos. Just to show how busy the event was, meetings carried on right up until the last minute of the show. In the last formal Copper Horse meeting of the day, the Fira staff were taking up the carpet and removing screens while the meeting was still going on! The day ended with a quiet Paella (where another ad hoc meeting happened (!)) before a good night’s rest before the journey home. Friday
Inevitably, the airport on Friday morning was chaos, with thousands of exhausted delegates desperate to leave. Some more accidental meetings at the airport and then finally, arrival in the UK!
All in all, MWC 2013 was a terrific experience and the busiest year yet for the Copper Horse team. Now starts the planning for next year!
I’ve been thinking for a while about the number of technologies that get announced, don’t really do anything, then die rather quickly. It’s just over a month before I head over to Barcelona for Mobile World Congress and I’m expecting to hear about a lot of new things that are destined for a quick entry to the “electronic afterlife” of Silicon Heaven. For those of you who don’t know what Silicon Heaven is, I’ll let the web explain:
Silicon Heaven
From Red Dwarf “The Last Day”, Season 3, Episode 6:
Lister: How can you just lie back and accept it? Kryten: Oh, it’s not the end for me, sir, it’s just the beginning. I have served my human masters, now I can look forward to my reward in silicon heaven. Lister: [Stunned pause] Silicon WHAT? Kryten: Surely you’ve heard of silicon heaven? Lister: Has it got anything to do with being stuck opposite Brigitte Nielsen in a packed lift? Kryten: No, sir. It’s the electronic afterlife. It’s the gathering place for the souls of all electronic equipment. Robots, toasters, calculators. It’s our final resting place. Lister: I don’t mean to say anything out of place here, Kryten, but that is completely whacko Jacko. There is no such thing as ‘Silicon Heaven’. Kryten: Then where do all the calculators go? Lister: They don’t go anywhere. They just die. Kryten: Surely you believe that God is in all things? Aren’t you a pantheist? Lister: Yeah, but I just don’t think it applies to kitchen utensils. I’m not a FRYING pantheist. Machines do not have souls. Computers and calculators do not have an afterlife. You don’t get hairdryers with tiny little wings, sitting on clouds and playing harps. Kryten: But of course you do. For is it not written in the Electronic Bible, “The Iron shall lie down with the Lamp”. Source: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0684183/quotes?qt=qt0310031
So what mobile technologies do you think should qualify for the past year? Who is most worthy (if that’s the word!) of the Silicon Heaven prize? Answers in the comments please! I’ll let you know my own thoughts very soon.
As we head towards the annual descent to Barcelona for Mobile World Congress, I thought I’d tell you about my mobile security dinner. This event is open for people interested in any aspect of mobile or network security, to share ideas and hopefully solve all the world’s problems. It’ll be held on the Sunday night (the 26th) from 9pm onwards at a secret location in Barcelona…
This is not the dinner you’re looking for…
Use the contact form above to get in touch if you’re interested in coming along. An important point to note – we split the bill at the end, so this is not a free meal 🙂