MUMBAI, INDIA: A rapidly evolving business landscape in India, accompanied by the increasing use of technology, has brought about a plethora of new security challenges that range from breaches in enterprise-level data security to issues of consumer identity privacy.

To address the urgent need to effectively preempt such security threats, 9.9 Media announced the India Information Security Conference (Infosec) 2008 – to be held in Mumbai on June 24-25, 2008. Mahindra Special Services Group (MSSG), Microsoft and Wipro are the principal sponsors of the two-day conclave.

Infosec 2008 is the first conference in India that aims to address information security from a cross-functional, cross-industry strategic perspective. It will delve into awareness and concern levels regarding the changing risk environment and will seek to trigger strategic thinking within senior management in corporate India on how to best protect their companies and customers from information security breaches.

'A State sponsored research indicates that the overall cost of security breaches in UK can be several billion pounds a year,' said Pramath Raj Sinha, MD, 9.9 Mediaworx Pvt Ltd. 'The scenario in the rapidly changing Indian environment will be no different if we do not prepare to battle the security challenges posed by this growth. This is a matter of concern and the industry should collaborate to redress the lag in this critical area. This is exactly what we hope to enable through Infosec 2008', he added.

While the keynote address will be delivered by Howard Schmidt - former special advisor for Cybersecurity for the White House and  former chief security advisor for eBay and Microsoft Corp., other speakers who will address the conference include Amit Mukherjee (RPG), Felix Mohan (Bharti), Vijay Mehra (Essar), Sanjay Nayar (Citibank), Neena Pahuja (Genpact), CN Ram (HDFC Bank) and Gulshan Rai (CERT-in). The conference will cover a range of topics including "Overcoming the last bastion - outsourcing corporate security", "Tackling globalization – complexities for information security" and "Going beyond RoI – the strategic value of information assets".