The Information Systems Security Association is an international professional body for information security personnel. ISSA was established in California in 1984 and since then has expanded across the world, now serving over 13,000 members through 125 chapters in 35 countries. As a non-profit organisation ISSA relies on volunteers to manage local chapters which provide educational and networking opportunities for members, supported
The first of these will be an evening seminar in Dublin which we plan to hold later this month. We are currently confirming the speaker for this event and hope to announce a date and further details shortly. Please watch out for further updates our ISSA Ireland Twitter account https://twitter.com/issaireland . The second event is earlier in the planning process and is more unusual: a Security Management Forum, aimed at senior
We wanted to “pre announce” this event early to get your feedback on the overall idea and the details needed to make it a success. by an international headquarters in Portland, Oregon. The Irish chapter of ISSA was formed in 2003 by a group of Irish information security professionals who saw the need for a local support organisation with global connections, allowing the Irish security community to not only share information locally but also access international resources. Following on from the success of the ISSA Ireland conference before the summer we are currently working on several events for later this year.
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managers and executives leading in-house information security teams. As some of you may know, ISSA International has run a successful CISO programme in the US for several years which brings together senior security leaders for closed-door education and networking sessions. The idea of our Security Management Forum is to take some of the successful elements from this US programme and adapt them to an Irish event. The Security Management Forum represents a new format for us and will differ from our typical events in several ways. Firstly, attendance will be limited to senior security managers or executives working in in-house roles. This is a significant change but mirrors the approach taken in the successful US format where it has been a key factor in allowing open discussion of potentially sensitive topics. The second key difference will
be in format and again we are taking the lead in this area from the US CISO Forum, where the events consist of an evening networking reception with a keynote speaker followed by a day-long programme covering a range of security topics. A key element of this format is a significant amount of time set aside for networking and open discussion of current issues, letting security managers and executives come to the event with challenges and leave with the input and advice of their peers. We wanted to “pre announce” this event early to get your feedback on the overall idea and the details needed to make it a success. For example, would this type of event be relevant to you or your organisation? Do you have particular topics you would like covered or suggestions for speakers? Would you or others in your organisation be interested in speaking or leading a discussion in this type of forum? We would love your feedback, either as a reply to myself or directly to any of our chapter board members: myself, Colm Deehan, Mike Harris, Mark McDonagh, Owen O’Connor or John Sheppard. Board members can be contacted via email using the format “firstname.lastname@issaireland.org”.
Paul Rochford Vice President, ISSA Ireland paul.rochford@issaireland.org www.issaireland.org