Congressmen address cybercrime at SC’s first US expo

Some of the SC World Congress team

Two of the US Congressmen advising Barack Obama on cybersecurity spoke at the first SC World Congress in New York, despite pressure for them to return to Washington DC for the vote on the now failed bail-out plan for America’s car industry.

Democrat Congressman Jim Langevin and Republican Congressman Michael McCaul joined two other members of the US Government Commission on Cybersecurity to hold a panel session – the highlight of the first exhibition and conference from IT security title SC Magazine US.

The Commission was formed to prepare a report for the incoming 44th President that gives detailed advice on strategies to combat the growing threat of cyber-attack. The report was released the day before SC’s two-day Congress began on Tuesday, December 9.

Tony Keefe, development director for SC Magazine US, said the panel was “the first opportunity the public had had to hear directly from the report’s authors about the Commission’s recommendations and conclusions and to ask questions about the report.”

“This was a tremendous coup for us and a reflection of the level of credibility that we had built for the event in its first year,” he said.

Keefe said that the Congress was set apart from competitors by its speakers – high-level security practitioners from the FBI, Barclays bank, Scotland Yard, Interpol, eBay and the New York Museum of Modern Art among others.

And while deteriorating economic conditions inevitably affected attendance to the two-day exhibition, feedback was “incredibly positive” according to Keefe. One of the 55 exhibitors said: “People are not here to collect pens, they are here to discuss real business.”