IDC conference to focus on smart technology investments in security and business continuity

The environment in which businesses operate is growing steadily more complex, driven by the competitive pressures of globalization and compounded by greater regulatory oversight.

Together, these complexities can significantly impact an organization's ability to do business and have elevated risk management to become a critical board room concern. These issues will be the focal point for IDC's Security and Business Continuity Forum, to be held September 20, 2004, at the Westin Essex House in New York City.

Forum attendees will gain insights into the challenges presented by today's complex business environment through a series of case study presentations by noted industry leaders. The case study presentations will provide an objective evaluation of emerging technologies and benchmarking opportunities that focus on the technical, financial, policy, and communication issues that are critical to understand as attacks on computer systems continue to multiply and new challenges in safeguarding information continue to arise.

“We believe the Forum will provide a unique experience for attendees,” said Elizabeth Cutler, vice president of IDC’s U.S. conference business. “In addition to providing the latest trends, research, and case studies, the conference offers an important opportunity for attendees to sign-up for up for one-on-one meetings with security experts at the event, where they can address the specific security and business continuity issues they are grappling with at their organization.”

Forum attendees will gain insight from a number of industry thought leaders, including keynote speaker, Howard Schmidt, Vice President and Chief Information Security Officer, of eBay. The program will open with a welcome from forum co-chairs, Chris Christiansen, Program Vice President, Security Products at IDC and Bob Bragdon, Publisher of CSO Magazine. Other conference highlights include case studies presented by:

Darek Milewski, Director, Information Security, Oracle
Allan Carey, Program Manager, Security and Business Continuity Services, IDC
Gerhard Eschelbeck, CTO, Qualys, Inc.
Jeffrey Kuhn, Senior Vice President, Bank of New York
Cliff Justice, Multishore Practice Leader, Equa Terra
Abner Germanow, Enterprise Networking Manager, IDC
Paul Simmonds, Global Information Security Director, ICI
The official partners of the IDC Security and Business Continuity Forum are CSO Magazine and The Wall Street Journal. Sponsors and other partners include Qualys, Inc., Contingency Planning and Management Magazine, The Contingency Planning Exchange, InfoWorld, and the New England Disaster Recovery Information X-change.

For more information or to register for the Security and Business Continuity Forum, please visit http://www.idc.com/securityforum04.

This event will be held the day before IDC's Legal and Regulatory Compliance in Information Management Forum. Information on this IDC conference can be found at www.idc.com/kahnconsulting/compliance04.

To learn about IDC conference sponsorship opportunities, please contact Elizabeth Cutler, 508-935-4790 or ecutler@idc.com.