Thank you to everyone to attended CISO Exchange – London

Hosted Thursday 12 May 2022
The Waldorf, London 

A selected group of industry leaders shared ideas and strategies to protect the organisations we work in and the societies in which we live. With a blend of fireside chats, case studies and networking in a CISO-driven agenda led by with and for CISOs. Powered by Pulse Conferences, CISO participants attending the CISO Exchange also joined the Qualys Security Conference (QSC). 

May 2023 London – Dates to be announced shortly!

Reflections on QSC London 2022

“It was fantastic to have so many people attend. The conference provided the opportunity to learn from one another, share problems, find solutions, and determine industry trends. For example, there was a lot more interest in automation from CISO than I expected. In cyber security, there is no destination – it’s a journey. We are moving in the right direction regarding how we can simplify security and reduce costs. Qualys is leading the way with innovation and solving problems. We’re hoping to continue and strengthen our association with our customers and be there alongside them on this journey.”
Sumedh Thakar, President and CEO, Qualys

“Events like this that allow those involved in cyber security work to discuss these new challenges are vital. How great to have these essential conversations face to face with an amazingly high-quality group of attendees. I have learnt a lot. I am very grateful to Qualys for the invitation to speak. Talking to attendees, I know that they appreciate the effort that has gone into organising this event. The timing has been perfect.”
John Noble CBE, Non-Executive Director, NHS Digital (and former Director at the National Cyber Security Centre)

“In-person events like this are important because we are fighting against groups working together, sharing all that information. We need to do the same. While events like this are not the silver bullet to sharing, they will help build trust. I’m happy to share my thoughts, learnings and challenges, and I’m also happy to receive knowledge from and engage other companies, so events like this are crucial to help start those conversations.”
Craig McEwan, CISO, Anglo American

“The event has been so lively – even during the short coffee breaks. There are so many interesting conversations, and it has been great to meet in person again. The consensus is that things get resolved much faster if done face to face. It helps to put names to faces, and there is more connection, and more relationship building. It’s great that Qualys can help the community and listen to our customers.”
Shailesh Athalye, Senior Vice President, Product Management, Qualys

“It’s been a very informative day. The highlights for me have been seeing a clear vision from Qualys, and a roadmap for its products. It’s great to see some features in the works that we’ve wanted to produce. And then also talking to the product managers and almost challenging them. So that face-to-face interaction is central to the day’s success.”
Ritesh Patel, Digital Security Principal, BP

“It was amazing to finally meet so many of our customers and partners face to face. While it is possible to create connections over web meetings, it does not come close to shaking hands and having open discussions in person. I loved all the sessions, with my favourites being the customer case studies. I attend many events, and the ones I do not enjoy are when you are spoken at for hours. However, being in the discussion and contributing to each session created a unique environment for collaboration.”
Matt Middleton-Leal, Managing Director EMEA North, Qualys

“It was good to be on stage, and the feedback from the case-study session was brilliant. Lots of people have asked me lots of questions. I attended the conference and also the superb training day. For somebody who considers themselves quite a competent Qualys user, I learnt an awful lot about some of the newer stuff that I had never really investigated. At the event, the contact building was terrific.”
Glenn Pegden, Security Vulnerability Manager at Sky Betting & Gaming

“The new features with VMDR 2.0 & CSAM were great to see. That was key for me. I enjoyed all of the sessions; each one had its value. With mine, we tried to make it a bit more light-hearted. Getting to talk about our journey so far with Qualys was special. After two years of no face-to-face interactions, it was great to get back to some normality, finally. “
Kevin Williams, Technical Lead, Cyber Security, Cargotec

“It has been a fantastic event – one of the first conferences we can meet people physically after the pandemic. It is very good to network with people, and I was delighted to have been invited by Qualys to talk about our experiences at the University of Westminster. In particular, it was fascinating to hear the keynote from John Noble, the ex-NCSC Director. His strategy aligned with what we are doing, so that felt reassuring.”
Thierry Delaitre, Head of IT Developments, University of Westminster

About CISO Exchange at QSC

CISO Exchange is a dedicated part of QSC, an exchange of expertise and ideas on how to better secure our digital assets and help our companies move into this new Digital Age.

About Qualys

• 20+ Security apps Evolutionary single agent architecture
• 10,000 Subscription customers worldwide
• 8+ trillion Data points indexed elastic in search clusters
• 2+ trillion Security events per year
• 6+ billion IP scans and audits per year
• 5+ billion Kafka messages per day
• 99.99966% Six Sigma scanning accuracy

Watch video highlights – CISO Exchange & QSC 2022

Key themes and takeaways from QSC London 2022

Desire to increase security automation
Cyber security professionals have a clear appetite for -up automated solutions, and with advancements in artificial intelligence, this area will develop at speed.

Power up patching capabilities and reducing risk
Ensuring that software is up to date remains the most essential foundational cyber security activity. Qualys Patch Management reduces risk by up to 60% faster.

Need to consolidate cyber security solutions
With hybrid working here to stay and new attack vectors to consider, simplifying technology and tools – preferably on one dashboard – is critical. Some 80% of CISOs are focused on vendor consolidation.

Greater collaboration and knowledge sharing are vital
Cybercriminals are joining forces, and ransomware-as-a-service has lowered the barrier to entry, so more effort must be made to work together to combat increasingly sophisticated attacks.

Highlights – CISO Exchange

Participating CISOs heard;

• The Executive strategy from Qualys CEO Sumedh Thakar and views on the industry and the challenges of keeping up with the cyber ‘demand’
• Fireside chat – Building automation and adoption in distributed models
• What do we need to do as an industry to tip the scales back in our favour – a CISO takes the lead on are we playing an unfair Squid game? Led by Craig McEwen CISO, Anglo American
• What good looks like in terms of the time to mitigate in todays heightened threat environment. BP’s Security Principal explores the ‘48 Hour window’ on managing the new normal Led by Ritesh Patel, Digital Security Principal, BP plc.

Timings – CISO Exchange

09:00-12:45 (Optional) Qualys Security Conference (QSC)
12:45-14:00 Lunch – Palm Court, The Waldorf
14:00-17:00 CISO Exchange
17:00-18:30 Networking Reception, Drinks, Canapes, Innovation Showcase, Palm Court, The Waldorf

Vulnerability in Numbers

185,446 – universe of all known vulnerabilities
55,186 (29%) – vulnerabilities with exploit available
0.4% – number of vulnerabilities that cause the most risk
37 – the average time to remediation for all compromised assets

Networking in Numbers

1,424 – views of the agenda
517 – private messages exchanged
411 – attendees who interacted with one another via the app
334 – total messages on community board
59 – meet-ups organised
47 – private group chats
41 – discussion topics