Cyber Attack Manila 2019 Featured A Lot Of Big Names

The two-day conference at the Makati Shangri-La–a top venue for corporate events–drew a huge crowd of visitors and featured serious players in the cybersecurity sector. Cyber Attack Manila 2019 is the latest addition to a regional series organized by the Teh Group whose content is geared toward security professionals in government and the private sector. With events for the infosec niche gaining momentum in the Philippines, CAM 2019 combined a luxury location with a P2P meeting space all wrapped up in a packed schedule. Among the sponsors were local telco ePLDT along with heavyweight exhibitors such as CrowdStrike, DarkTrace, KPMG, and several others.

21st Century Asian Arms Race (21AAR) is a media partner for CAM 2019.

A welcome presence at the con were Anomali whose team commanded a small booth next to fellow travelers Magnet Axiom. Founded in 2013, Anomali specializes in “cyber threat intelligence” on a scalable package, which means they’re able to help clients big and small. A familiar participant at CAM 2019 are CrowdStrike, whose profile in Asia is already established as a vendor and a research consultancy, and the company gained extra recognition as “Workshop Sponsors.”

A rare appearance by DarkTrace spiced things up. The company renowned for its AI focused approach to threat detection is quietly making inroads across Asia. Founded by Cambridge mathematicians who harnessed Bayesian logic to create a machine learning algorithm, DarkTrace has branded its tech as an irresistible “enterprise immune system” that has drawn a broad and varied clientele. With its year-on-year profits soaring, DarkTrace is now poised to break out of Europe and really shake up cybersecurity.

The local partners of Fortinet were exhibiting too. With a market presence going back 19 years, the publicly traded Fortinet counts among the older players in cybersecurity. Its age relative to other companies has given Fortinet a unique perspective when anticipating trends. Among its goals in the coming decade is “edge computing” or the connectivity resulting from widespread 5G and Internet of Things (IoT) adoption.

A fresh appearance by LMNTRX turned more than a few heads. The cybersecurity troubleshooting outfit was bootstrapped by its founder Carlo Minassian after selling his previous effort for a huge sum. Launched in 2017 as a passion project of sorts, LMNTRX helps its clients by assigning teams who work on an offensive security strategy in keeping with the motto “be the hunter, not the prey.” The company’s distinct approach was inspired by Minassian’s own experience with overworked and overwhelmed managers barraged with network threats. A recent win by LMNTRX was to unearth evidence of the NanoCore RAT vulnerability that compromised some of the best known PC hardware brands.

Also exhibiting were Tufin, who were eager to pitch their cyber security policy tools that help clients monitor their crowded networks. The difference with Tufin is what it calls “orchestration” where its apps helps users make sense of their overlapping security products and protocols. The company boasts an enormous worldwide clientele and operations spanning its main HQ in Boston and a secondary HQ in Tel Aviv.

CAM 2019 managed to balance an intimate gathering with an engaging white collar micro-exhibition. No surprise that attendance was strong and the caliber of material presented was perfectly attuned to the target audience’s concerns. There aren’t a lot of cybersecurity events in the Philippines right now but CAM 2019 ranked among the better ones. The next installment of the Cyber Attack conference series is Taipei this September and Sydney this October.