What COVID-19 is doing to cybersecurity conferences

Date: 20 Feb 2020

The novel coronavirus outbreak started since December 2019 and is causing chaos in the events world. According to Reuters, over two dozen trade fairs and conferences in Asia have been postponed due to coronavirus fears.

How about cybersecurity conferences in particular?

We look into some high-profile cybersecurity conferences from now until July 2020, including those in Singapore:

Black Hat Asia 2020 (BHA 2020)

The Asia edition of the Black Hat event series, originally slated to happen from 31 Mar-3 Apr in Singapore this year, has been postponed to the fall of the year due to concerns around the coronavirus outbreak.

Black Hat prides itself to be the most technical and relevant information security event series in the world.

Screenshot of BHA2020 website on 19 Feb:  Organisers announced that the event is postponed to sometime in the second half of 2020.

Website: https://www.blackhat.com/asia-20/

Update as of 21 Feb 2020: Black Hat announces that BHA2020 will take place from 29 Sep – 2 Oct 2020.

Screenshot of BHA2020 website on 21 Feb:  Organisers announced that the event has been postponed to end of September.


RSA Conference 2020 (RSAC 2020)

RSAC is one of the biggest and most reputable security-focused series of conferences in the world. The US edition of RSAC (RSAC 2020 US)  is still going ahead from 24-28 Feb despite the coronavirus situation. Big-name exhibitors including IBM, AT&T and Verizon have pulled out from the event at the last minute. According to RSAC’s website, as of 14 Feb 2020, 0.79% of total number of expected attendees have cancelled their registration.

The Asia-Pacific & Japan edition (RSAC 2020 APJ) will happen in Singapore from 14-16 July 2020. Let’s cross fingers the health crisis gets resolved by then. The outbreak of COVID-19’s sibling SARS took around 8 months to die out.

Website (RSAC 2020 US): https://www.rsaconference.com/usa/
Website (RSAC 2020 APJ): https://www.rsaconference.com/apj


Gartner Security Risk & Conference Summit 2020

Gartner Security Risk & Conference Summit another highly-regarded series of events which brings together a community of thought leaders and industry experts in security and risk management.

The US edition will be happening from 1-4 June 2020 in National Harbor MD.

The Australia edition is slated to happen from 16-17 June 2020 in Sydney. It’ll be interesting to see how things develop with the Australia edition. There are more than 10 cases of COVID-19 infections in Australia as of Feb 2020.

Website (US edition): https://www.gartner.com/en/conferences/na/security-risk-management-us
Website (Australia edition): https://www.gartner.com/en/conferences/na/security-risk-management-us


SINCON 2020

SINCON 2020, Singapore’s premier techno-centric cybersecurity conference, is the conference feature of Infosec In the City, a well-curated cybersecurity event series that brings top cybersecurity thought leadership from around the world.

It is slated to happen from 14-15 May 2020. There are no announcements around the coronavirus outbreak so far, but given that the conference is going to happen in Singapore, it’ll be interesting to watch this space.

Website: https://www.infosec-city.com/sin20-1

Update as of 22 Feb 2020: SINCON announces that new dates are “to be announced”.

Screenshot of SINCON2020 website on 22 Feb:  Organisers announced that the event date is to be announced

 

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What COVID-19 is doing to cybersecurity conferences

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