The Telecommunication Regulatory Authority (TRA) Represented by aeCERT to Bring Global Cyber Security Experts to Abu Dhabi

ABU DHABI, UAE, November 9, 2010 /PRNewswire/ -- Leaders in the IT security consulting and researching fields will be speaking at Black Hat Abu Dhabi bringing a wealth of experience spanning many years to a Middle Eastern audience.

The UAE Computer Emergency Response Team (aeCERT) announced today the line-up of experts they'll be hosting during Black Hat Abu Dhabi, the conference which brings together experts and companies in the IT security field to discuss the latest in IT security issues, trends, and solutions. Black Hat will take place from 8th to 11th of November 2010 in Emirates Palace.

Speakers include Lukas Grunwald, CTO of DN-Systems Enterprise Internet Solutions GmbH (Hildesheim/Germany), a globally acting consulting firm working mainly in the field of security solutions for enterprises and federal governments in Europe and Asia. He is also the head of the Hacking Lab where new technology is evaluated and has over 15 years of experience in the industry.

Christopher Hoff, Director of Cloud and Virtualization Solutions of the Security Technology Business Unit at Cisco Systems, has over 19 years of experience in high-profile global roles in network and information security architecture, engineering, operations, product management and marketing with a passion for virtualization and all things Cloud.

Ivan Ristic, a respected security expert and author, known especially for his contribution to the web application firewall field and the development of ModSecurity, the open source web application firewall. He is also the author of Apache Security, a comprehensive security guide for the Apache web server, and ModSecurity Handbook, the definitive guide to the popular open source web application firewall.

Adam Laurie is one of the most experienced speakers to appear at Black Hat Abu Dhabi, he is now a freelance security consultant working the in the field of electronic communications. He started in the computer industry in the late Seventies, working as a computer programmer on PDP-8 and other mini computers, as various other computers emerged in the Eighties he quickly became interested in the underlying network and data protocols, and moved his attention to those areas and away from programming, starting a data conversion company which rapidly grew to become Europe's largest specialist in that field (A.L. downloading Services).

During this period, he successfully disproved the industry lie that music CDs could not be read by computers, and, with help from his brother Ben, wrote the world's first CD ripper, 'CDGRAB'. At this point, he and Ben became interested in the newly emerging concept of 'The Internet', and were involved in various early open source projects, the most well known of which is probably their own - 'Apache-SSL' - which went on to become the de-facto standard secure web server.

Since the late Nineties, they have focused their attention on security, and have been the authors of various papers exposing flaws in Internet services and/or software, as well as pioneering the concept of re-using military data centres (housed in underground nuclear bunkers) as secure hosting facilities.

His Excellency Mohamed Nasser Al Ghanim, Director General of the TRA said: "Holding Black Hat, the world's leading technical security conference in Abu Dhabi, supports the TRA vision to make the UAE's ICT sector a leader in the global market place. The TRA is proud to collaborate with Khalifa University of Science and Technology the leading partner of Black Hat Abu Dhabi."

Black Hat Abu Dhabi will take place from the 8th to 11th November 2010 at the Emirates Palace, and will include a wide variety of intensive technical presentations delivered by the leading thinkers of the information security world. The event will also provide hands-on, multi-day training sessions on the latest in IT security trends and techniques, while the Black Hat Briefings will offer an opportunity for industry experts to share their experience and knowledge with other professionals.

"Cyber security is increasingly seen as a top priority across the globe and we are delighted to see Abu Dhabi is taking the necessary steps to becoming a thought leader in security for the Middle East region," said Jeff Moss, Founder of Black Hat.

Black Hat Abu Dhabi commenced today with great attendance. Remaining seats are limited for the conference briefings and all training sessions are fully booked. Reserve your place now at http://www.Blackhat.com.

For more details on speakers and full biographies please visit: http://www.blackhat.com/html/bh-ad-10/bh-ad-10-speaker_bios.html

Notes to the editor

For more information please see http://www.blackhat.com

Black Hat briefings and training is the largest and most important security conference series in the world. Black Hat Abu Dhabi is organised by UBM Middle East on behalf of TechWeb, a division of United Business Media.

Individuals, associations, government bodies, academic institutions and companies interested in finding out more about Black Hat Abu Dhabi should contact the organisers, UBM Middle East for information, on +971-2-406-4471 or email [email protected]

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For media information contact:

Abdul Karim Samaan, Grayling Momentum, [email protected] or +971-4-390-1630

Further information on UBM Middle East can be found at http://www.ubmmiddleeast.com

SOURCE United Business Media (UBM Middle East)