On behalf of me and the entire team of Virtuport, it is my pleasure to welcome you to the Middle East & North Africa Information Security Conference – MENA ISC 2013 being held here at Riyadh, KSA at the fabulous Four Seasons Hotel. We would like to especially thank His Excellence Minister of Communications & Information Technology (MCIT) for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia for his patronage and support for this event.

This is the first event for VirtuPort in Saudi Arabia but the third for MENA ISC dating back to 2011. This year’s conference has a distinguished list of Keynote speakers including Howard Schmidt, Ira Winkler, Sean McGurk and Ankit Mishra as well as many more from sponsors. Topics will range but key themes that will be covered will include SCADA Security, Advanced Persistent Threats (APT), Malware including Targeted Attacks and much more. As the IT security landscape continues to evolve with rapid growth, complexity and sophistication so does the need to devise security solutions and services to combat such risks and vulnerabilities. The goals of the conference are to discuss many issues related to Information Security, particularly the strategies how Cyber Security does and should play a role in our Business.

As a result of the great advancements in the ICT industry, the world has become mesh of interconnected networks connecting governments to their constituents, students to their universities, consumers to their vendors and much more. Along with these amazing achievements of increased social and professional networking opportunities; an increased number of security risks continue created, discovered and exploited.

Throughout 2012 and into 2013, we have seen the region continue to be affected by the Cyber Security threats, the examples are many and the challenge is grave with the collection of distinguished speakers the information provided will help the expected 300+ delegates from various organizations to put information security back as a top priority in their organizations. We want to thank all the invited speakers, sponsors and delegates who have come to make it successful event.

The goals for this conference are:
• Increased awareness of Cyber and Information Security issues

• Understanding more about possible solutions from industry experts

• Networking of delegates to share experiences to foster cooperation

We hope that you will enjoy the conference and benefit from it.