The hottest ticket in town

Will you be joining us for the inaugural CRN Online Security Summit?

Few would deny that cyber-security has zoomed to the top of the boardroom pecking order, with even Barack Obama holding a White House summit on the issue earlier this month.

But are resellers, SIs and consultancies ready to fully capitalise on a market Gartner forecasts will grow by more than eight per cent this year to $76.9bn (£50bn)?

With this question in mind, CRN has set aside 25 March for a series of panel sessions and Q&As in our inaugural Online Security Summit. Click here to register for FREE.

Time for a new approach to IT security?

The summit will kick off with a panel session entitled "From 'protect' to 'detect and defend': Time for a new approach to IT security?".

As encapsulated by a Symantec exec's admission last year that "anti-virus is dead" - and in this recent BBC article and Gartner study - industry lingo is shifting rapidly away from blocking attacks to minimising damage once the bad guys are in. With concerns growing over the effectiveness of traditional preventative controls, the focus has moved from being reactive to being proactive.

Gartner and Symantec, however, have reports and software to shift.

We wanted to know from those at the coalface - IT resellers - whether this supposed shift is more than just marketing hype. Are end users really demanding solutions around compromise detection, investigation and response? Do they even have a budget for it? Is it really a mass market opportunity? And if so, is this really a market traditional IT resellers can target and - more importantly - make money from?

A data with destiny

The Online Security Summit will culminate in a live discussion on the thorny topic of data sovereignty in a session entitled "A data with destiny: Can European customers trust US providers with their data?"

The issue of data sovereignty is no longer just an arcane concern of CISOs and IT directors, having made international headlines over the past couple of years.

Following the Edward Snowden (pictured) NSA revelations, US vendor giants have faced increased scrutiny over their hotly disputed and denied role in providing the government with data.

All of which could potentially drive customers towards local IT partners. As Microsoft continues its legal fight to deny US officials access to data stored in its Dublin datacentre facility, European end users and channel players alike need to ask what is best for their sensitive information.

This live session will feature a discussion between an array of channel experts from across Europe to examine whether there is any inherent risk in working with the big US cloud providers, how European hosting providers can offer their customers the greatest security, and what the opportunities are for the channel in securing, storing and managing client data.

Join us

With IT security the hottest ticket in town, CRN and sister publication Channelnomics.eu are setting aside a whole day devoted to the topic and how it is playing out in the channel.

This is a chance to hear what your peers think about subjects as diverse as data sovereignty, physical security and the IT security skills shortage, so please register by following this link.