According to the Oman chapter of ISACA, a session on the topic Expecting the Unexpected, the Role of the Next Generation IT Security Manager by Dr K. Rama Subramaniam, director and CEO of Valiant Technologies, was a great success,
Dr Rama, who is Chennai and Adjunct Professor of Cybercriminology with the University of Madras and chairman of the Information Security & Cyber Crime Research Foundation, welcomed the guests and gave a brief introduction about the chapter.
In his speech Dr Rama highlighted on how the skill sets of the next generation information security manager have been challenged and how IT security professionals are now expected to foresee the unexpected in terms of information security requirements, threats on the horizon and the information security vulnerabilities that are constantly being discovered.
Dr Rama focussed his presentation on four key areas: technology solutions providing diminishing marginal utility; the focus on better understanding human-machine interactions; understanding cyberterrorism at enterprise level; and the need to perform unconventional roles.
These unconventional roles, he told delegates, include building information security tracking systems ahead of attacks, better understanding the complexity of digital security; and playing the roles of information security educator and mentor.
Quoting a well-known researcher, Dr Rama said that technology-based information security threats are on the decline, but those involving financial fraud are an increasing trend.
"Hackers have moved beyond conventional threats to modern motivated victimisation of innocent users through organised underground operations", he said.
The ISACA session, which was attended by 65 chapter members from over 45 organisations and about 14 special guests, ended with an interactive question and answer session where the audience probed Dr Rama further.
ISACA's Muscat chapter - which now has 248 members - was established in 2000 under the sponsorship of the College of Banking and Financial Studies (CBFS) which is affiliated to the Central Bank of Oman.