Wednesday 8th June InfoSecurity 2016 at Kensington Olympia 
I arrived at Olympia just as it was opening at 9:30 am and joined long queues to register and collect badges.
After about 10 – 15 minutes I finally entered the hall once my badge had been scanned. There were a huge number of stands on the ground floor and on the upstairs galley.
All the sales people were eager to make eye contact and strike up a conversation. My first impression was that this was a standard hard sell marketing event. However once passed the entrance and looking at the agenda for the day while having a coffee I planned the presentations I would attend using the InfosecEU16 app on my phone. These were
Standardisation for Cryptographic technologies – Technology Showcase – Steven Jacques – Juniper
This presentation outlined new VPN standards for hub and spoke and mesh architectures.
Bringing World Class Defence Grade Cyber Security Managed Services (and Delivered Locally) to the SMB Market at last! – Cyber Innovation Showcase – Terry Pudwell – Assuria
This presentation introduced security operations managed services for small to medium sized businesses at low cost.
Securing Devices and Data in the Internet of Things – Cyber Innovation Showcase – Remco Postma – Device Authority
Automated cryptographic key management for M2M and IoT.
Automating Network and Security Device Operations – Technology Showcase – Rafi Zvi – Backbox
Automated centralised management of device configuration and backup.
Cryptography, Quantum Computing and the future of Cyber Security Controls – Keynote Stage – Jaya Baloo – KPN Telecom
This keynote discussed how Quantum computers could affect Cryptography and Information security. Although I didn’t fully understand the concepts (qubits, superposition, entanglement, qubits can be in 2 states at once, there is not 100% probability of obtaining the correct result…) it was apparent that Quantum computers could significantly impact the security of our data and transactions perhaps not today but at some point in the future. Talk about sub –atomic particle spin states I know it left my head spinning! One of the questions I had leaving the event was “how do you build a quantum computer” so I did a bit of “googling” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1PcseLsYZ9Y) and it turns out that there are many ways (Superconducting, Ion trap, Optical lattice, etc, etc..) and all seem to have significant challenges. So I think I will be following this field a bit more in future.
As the day progressed I realised even if you came all 3 days you would not have time to attend all presentations and workshops.
This event is well worth attending whatever your reasons and it is obvious this industry is growing rapidly.