Smart Cities, Finance Security Hot Topics At London Technology Week

Next week, technology will take over the city of London. With more than 100 conferences, workshops, and networking soirees about technology in art, media, small business, large enterprise, finance, healthcare, smart cities, and more, London Technology Week has some cybersecurity events tucked into the program as well. Here's a rundown of what to expect.

The finance sector's challenges will get particular attention. The Checkout.com Hackathon lets you try to hack into an e-commerce site while riding along on a London tour bus, and the Innovate Finance “Catching the Big Phish” event will bring together representatives from the industry and the National Cyber Crime Unit.

The IFSEC Global conference, historically for professionals on the physical security and law enforcement side of the house, has expanded as the digital and physical worlds continue to converge -- in smart cities, smart homes, control systems, and digital evidence at physical crime scenes. The event will examine this convergence in a variety of sessions, including a "Cybersecurity Master Class" led by David Emm, principal security researcher of Kaspersky Lab UK, and Sharon Williams, regional safety and security director of Morgans Hotel Group.

Before that master class, though, will be the DarkReading Cybersecurity Crash Course -- which premiered in April at Interop Las Vegas.

When we say crash course, we really mean crash course. After a brief intro by yours truly, Eric Hanselman, Chief Analyst at 451 Research, will take the audience on a whirlwind one-hour tour of the realm where the DarkReading community lives every day.  

IFSEC is also devoting an entire track to the topic of "safe cities"--a subject that grows increasingly complicated as cities grow "smarter." Futurologist Dr. Simon Moores will delve into the opportunities and threats of the evolving metropolis in "Safe, Smart, and Connected Cities."

The BlackHat Mobile Summit will provide a taste of all the ways Android devices can get in trouble, but doesn't let iOS or Windows get off unscathed either.

Interop London has devoted an entire track to infosec and risk management, with speakers like Terry Greer-King, head of cybersecurity for Cisco, and Vijoy Pandey, head of datacenter network engineering for Google. 

Brigadier Alan Hill, head of operate and defend, information systems and services, Ministry of Defence will take the Interop keynote stage to discuss what enterprises can learn from the UK military about cybersecurity and Quentyn Taylor, director of information security for Canon Europe, will talk about what enterprises can learn from herd animals about it.

Whitehall Media’s Identity Management conference will feature I&AM experts and practitioners from ABN Amro, BNP Paribas, and others.

At "Handling Personal Data: A Legal Conference for SMEs," representatives from government agencies, law firms, academia and more will help small- and medium-sized businesses navigate the complex web of privacy and security laws that apply to data in Europe. 

That scratches the surface. For more information, see http://londontechnologyweek.co.uk/, and come back to DarkReading next week for coverage.