National Seminar on " Information Security: Emerging Threats and Innovations in the 21^st century"

IIIM organised a day long National Seminar on " Information Security: Emerging Threats and Innovations in the 21^st century" on January 31, 2007. The main sponsor for the seminar was BSNL, and the other co-sponsors were ICICI Bank and Saras. The resource persons for the seminar were Mr. Prashant Shukla, Vice President Countrywide Securities Corporation Ltd., Mr. G. S. Rao, Senior Consultant, TCS, Mr. D. P. Singh, Deputy General Manager, ONGC and Mr. Amal Krishna, Senior Engineer, ONGC. 

Mr. Prashant Shukla addressed the audience with the domains of security and discussed in detail the magnitude, significance and best practices of Information Security. He explained in detail, various techniques to attack and penetrate the Information Security Mechanisms like Sniffing, Spoofing, Man in the Middle, Port Scan etc. Mr. Shukla also explained the subtle difference between a Worm and a Virus and how do they wreck havoc in an Information System. While suggesting various strategies to counter these possible threats and vulnerabilities he proposed "STRIDE" model. He opined that Information Security should be viewed as a "business problem" rather than as a "technical problem" and thus should be addressed on an organisational level. To do this he stressed on applying Security Engineering through "Secure by Design", "Secure by Default" and "Secure by Deployment" principles and developing "Culture of Security" in the organisation. 

Mr. G.S. Rao in his lecture quipped upon dependency of Indian Information Technology industry on foreign, patented software and stressed on development of indigenous open source software to achieve self dependency in terms of software. He explained that since the open source software are developed and improved upon by self motivated open source community of developers and programmers, integration of security mechanisms and policies in such software is easy and convenient. Mr. Rao also discussed cyber laws and policies in this context. The speaker concluded his lecture with a very informative and attractive presentation on transmission of data over a secure channel. 

Mr. D. P. Singh, Deputy General Manager, ONGC, New Delhi presented the emerging threats and challenges in the context of Information Technology in a very simple, lucid yet informative manner. He stressed upon thinking differently and the need to continually evolve a well planned and designed information security system through application of newer mechanisms and policies. Mr. Amal Krishna, Superintending Engineer, ONGC traced the history of Information Security and sketched its picture in present context. 

The seminar was a grand success with participation from almost 16 technical and management colleges all over, with MNIT, Ajmer Engineering College, Kota Engineering College, Gyan Vihar Universe, Jaipur Engineering College and Research Centre, Apex Institute of Management, Banasthali Vidyapeeth, International College for Girls, Global Institute of Technology, Subodh Institute of Management & Computer Studies, Commerce College, JNIT to name a few.