IMPROVATE's international Cyber-Tech Conference in Tel Aviv attracts leading global experts and top technology companies

TEL AVIV, Israel, Jan 19, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- "With so much data being created, that data will never be one hundred percent safe", former world chess champion, cyber and AI expert Garry Kasparov told IMPROVATE Cyber-Tech Conference in Tel Aviv.  Addressing the issue of high-profile data hacks and leaks, such as the recent Pandora Papers, Kasparov, while noting that such leaks can be beneficial to expose corruption, said: "protecting data is all about ensuring that human-machine collaboration is going to work in our favor.  It's a trade-off, there's no, there's no simple, win-win combination. You will win some and you will lose some; the important thing is that the balance will be in our favor."

On the issue of state-sponsored hacking, Kasparov said the West lacked the political will to create cyber deterrence against Russia, China, and other countries, as well as non-state actors. "The American administration shows no appetite for confrontation...Europeans show very little appetite and zero political will or even worse, they're willing to cooperate with dictators on some business projects and ignore the fact that countries like Russia or China create a real existential threat to cyber security, whether it's on the state level, company level or individual level. It's a political solution and we know that neither Europe nor North America are showing any appetite and demonstrating any political will to fight back.

Global experts, government officials, and leading Israeli technology companies took part in IMPROVATE Cyber-Tech conference and discussed a wide range of issues, including how to combat cyber-threat scenarios and fake news, and legislative frameworks for fighting cybercrime.

Representatives from several countries including Bulgaria, Romania, and Ethiopia took part in the conference, alongside leading Israeli technology companies Cyberint, Protex, and Zimperium.

IMPROVATE advisory board member and former Bulgarian President Rosen Plevneliev said that European countries were looking to Israel's experience and technology to protect themselves in the cybersphere. "Every 30 seconds we have a cyber attack being launched in the world, no-one is immune, no-one is safe, and that is why we need to bring solutions that work. And that is why we have so many regions today from Southeast and Central Europe, and other regions in the world listening to the world-leading industry, the one of Israel, and hoping to cooperate so that we could benefit together."

Former Romanian prime minister, Victor Ponta told the conference that national governments need to understand that there is no greater risk to their national security or easier cross-border crime than cybercrime.  "We need more cooperation at the national level," Ponta said. "I strongly believe, now that I am in the private sector, but having previously worked for 20 years in the political area, that cooperation between public institutions, law enforcement, and private companies is the key to success in fighting cybercrime."

Ethiopian Ambassador to Israel, H.E. Reta Alemu Nega said Africa presented a huge opportunity for the Israeli tech sector in general and in particular for cyber-tech companies. "African countries have now come to adapt to technologies, and have started using cyberspace for different aspects of life - education, health, telecommunications, and so on. In that context, there is huge potential for Israeli company companies to invest in the high-tech sector, and also to invest in the cybersecurity sector. One area of focus of investment could be building the necessary infrastructure for countering cyber-attacks, while another could be creating manpower. For instance, taking Ethiopia as a case in point, we have young, highly trained manpower, we have over 45 universities, focusing on teaching the young generation in the tech sector, where there is huge potential for Israeli companies to use that manpower to deploy in various parts of Africa." 

Dr. Nimrod Kozlovski, a law professor, venture capitalist, and cybersecurity consultant, and a partner at the law firm Herzog, Fox & Neeman said that while Israel has a very strong cybersecurity industry, with strong practices for cyber investigation and cyber litigation, its regulation had failed to keep pace with technology. Kozlovski said that international cooperation requires an agreed valid regulatory framework, and said that the "EU has done tremendous work in putting together the GDPR, which is the privacy regulation that regulates how you deal with private information, how you protect it, how you notify a breach, what's the right of the data subject...  I think the EU is really setting a kind of example to the world of how you do solid regulation."

Gilbert Ohana, a co-founder and managing partner at FinTLV Ventures, and a cybersecurity advisor to financial companies said that with growing risks from cybercrime financial companies needed to invest more in their response and recovery procedures to build their resilience capabilities. He also called on companies to conduct "training for top management and board of directors, executing breach, detection and response simulations. These have great value because they can expose the procedures that companies are missing and enable participants to get accustomed to the stress involved in decision making when there is a breach happening."

IMPROVATE board member Maj. Gen (ret) Amos Gilead, Executive Director of the Institute for Policy and Strategy at IDC Herzliya, said cyberattacks were one of the major threats faced by states as they are invisible and therefore deniable. "You need to know your enemy, to follow their systems and models, and to be able to protect yourself and to retaliate in ways that will share with them a real message of deterrence, and it must rely on cost-effective capabilities."

IMPROVATE Co-founder and CEO Ronit Hasin-Hochman said the conference showed how Israel was a world leader in cyber technologies. "We saw today that while Israeli technology in the cyber field is highly sought-after and Israeli companies enjoy huge success, there are still many untapped markets and opportunities for them to explore."

Cyberint provides actionable intelligence and insights into the threats that are most relevant and important to proactively protect organizations from cyber-attacks beyond the perimeter. Cyberint CEO Yochai Corem explained: "Every organization has digital assets, be they domain IP addresses, and today very common cloud assets that are very widely used. And if it's a large organization, it's very hard to manage, and understand what are those assets, actually, the organization holds. What Cyberint does is to discover those assets. We scan the entire internet a few times a week, we try to associate between a name of an organization which the only thing we need is a starting point to all the different cloud assets and IP addresses and domains, etc. And then once we have this attack surface mapping, which is a very sophisticated task for many organizations today, we're continuously scanning those for any misconfigurations problems, or what is called in the industry shadow IT."

Asaf Peleg is Vice President of Strategic Projects & Director of Business Development at Zimperium. a global leader in mobile security and the only mobile security platform purpose-built for enterprise environments. "Mobile phones are a very easy gateway for an attacker to jump from the mobile endpoint to the desktop or laptop or servers or anything else within the organization. What organizations need to keep in mind is the need to secure their mobile devices and mobile applications, and have the visibility as to what's going on on these devices."

Arie Frenklach, the founder of Protex, the industry's first security platform for B2C communication, said his company was unique due to its model, which he said provides a SAS solution. "The customer doesn't need to install anything on their site. They just need to use our technology. And actually, we cover all three major elements, the three major risks of the telecom industry:  one is authentication, the second is data integrity and data protection, and the third is the customer doesn't need protection."

For upcoming conferences visit www.improvate.net

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Photo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1729849/IMPROVATE_Rosen_Plevneliev.jpg

Photo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1729850/IMPROVATE_Victor_Ponta.jpg