Update on the (ISC)² Chapter Switzerland General Assembly 2018

Posted on 25 May 2018 by Enrico Fontan

Dear friends and colleagues,

On 6th March, 2018, the (ISC)2 Swiss Chapter members joined in University of Bern for the 2018 General Assembly.

The assembly voted for the new board, elected president for year 2018 is John Alexakis, IT Service & Product Manager by UBS.

New board is composed as follows:

  • John Alexakis, President
  • Erich Vogt, Treasurer
  • Enrico Fontan, Secretary
  • Mikhail Tisov, Membership Chair and Representative for Zurich
  • Erich Hayek, Safe and Secure Online Lead and Representative for Swiss Romande
  • Jeff Hunter, Marketing Support

As last year members Sandro Cadosch is confirmed for the ISC2 Swiss Chapter Auditor role. You can see the composition of our new board here https://isc2-switzerland.ch/board/

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The General Assembly opened with a big thanks and applause to stepping out president Kelly Richdale leading the Swiss Chapter since 2015.  She has in the last months started a new challenge in the Innovation Council of Innosuisse, the federal organisation charged with promoting science based innovation in Switzerland.

Members thanked also Cristian Dumitrescu and Andrey Mityukov, board members that helped the organization in 2017 and that are now leaving the board.

During the meeting, chapter members had the opportunity to review activities performed last year and to receive an overview on the approved the financial statement and Audit report for the year 2017.

We would like to mention that the General Assembly allowed for the first time remote participation via Webinar platform.  Main goal of the platform is to offer the opportunity to more Chapter members to see and participate to other upcoming events.

The participants proposed and voted the following challenging goals for the year 2018:

  • Review existing Bylaws and suggest necessary amendments
  • Investigate the possibility to translate Safe and Secure Online material (initially in German) and prepare cost estimation
  • Implement electronic voting for Chapter Members in order to approve the new bylaws,  expenses for SSO material translation, and any other important decisions from now on
  • Organise a local one day event after summer that will be free for Chapter Members
  • Continue the collaboration with SIGS and investigate possible synergies with Swiss CyberSecurity

We would like to thank you for your participation and we hope to see you soon during the next upcoming events!

Best regards,

The Board of (ISC)2  Chapter Switzerland

John, Erich, Enrico, Mikhail, Erich and Jeff

 

 

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Dear members of the (ISC)² Chapter Switzerland, Dear friends, dear professionals.

Posted on 8 June 2016 by Enrico Fontan

It’s been a while since the blog was updated and much has passed since then. Firstly we have a new board team for the Swiss chapter, elected at the General Assembly in Bern on 15th March.  Welcome to our new board member Cristian Dumitrescu, and thanks to our outgoing president Ruediger Rissman for all his hard work last year.

You can see the composition of our new board here https://isc2-switzerland.ch/board/

We are proud to serve the security and IT communities in Switzerland, and particularly our ISC2 members,  so please feel free to contact us anytime with recommendations on how to better do this. We also welcome any suggestions for talks and events – we are always in search of new speakers and host organisations, so reach out to us with your thoughts.

And finally a few words on our flagship annual conference, SecureZuerich, which was held on 19th May, focussing on “Securing the Virtual Organisation”. This was the biggest SecureEvent ever in the (ISC)2 EMEA, with 195 attendees. It was sold out a good 2 weeks before the event,with a waitlist  – next year we will have to foresee a bigger venue!  The event was hosted by our main banking sponsor UBS in an elegant high-tech building close to the main train station, no doubt addingto the popularity of the event.

ISC2_SecureZurich2016_Panelist

The topics ranged from Risk Management to Cyberterrorism to technical themes, such as IoT and how to manage admin privileges.  Speakers were dynamic and highly experienced, coming from government and industry, as well as end users in the banking and other sectors.  As usual, the sessions were highly interactive with multiple questions and comments from the audience, in keeping with the less formal atmosphere we try to cultivate.  And the final panel – debating privacy of data in the new world of big data and pervasive IoT – was passionate and only ended with the promise of excellent Swiss wines.

We look forward to seeing you all at the next conference or (ISC)2 event!

Best regards,

The Board of (ISC)2  Chapter Switzerland

Kelly, Sandro, John, Camillo and Cristian

 

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Objects in the mirror: Looking back at 2014

Posted on 23 December 2014 by John Alexakis

Dear members of the (ISC)² Chapter Switzerland,
Dear friends, dear professionals.

Another year comes to a close. For Information Security and for you as professionals it was challenging, but we hope, rewarding and ultimately successful. The stakes in our field have never been higher, as ever more everyday activities are moving into Cloud services, yet security weaknesses that could have been closed ages ago continued rearing their ugly head. If technology was still the key problem, we’d be closer to a sustainable solution. In the real world, security has to rely on a successful combination of human skill and volition. It is the human factor that makes or breaks security.

For the Chapter, and for (ISC)², 2014 was a great year. (ISC)² passed 100’000 members this year, and held its first EMEA Congress. In Switzerland, the Chapter has continued to grow, and we had ten events in the French and German speaking parts of Switzerland. This included SecureZurich in June and SecureFribourg in September, both with record attendance. We would like to thank all delegates to our events, all speakers and sponsors, as well as our friends from other Chapters, other Swiss security organizations, (ISC)² and its partners for the excellent collaboration!

The Safe & Secure Online program, to which many Chapter members are volunteers, had a tremendous year, with no less than eleven presentations and over 550 parents, teachers and children reached. 2014 also saw the expansion of Safe & Secure Online into German speaking Switzerland. Bringing the program into so many classrooms for free is the merit of the volunteers, leaders and sponsors for Safe & Secure Online, without who this program could not exist.

We are looking forward to building on this year’s accomplishments, welcoming the new year with our now traditional drinks in Zurich, and the General Assembly a couple of weeks later (both by separate invitation).

However, the Chapter is a grassroots effort. That’s why we are always looking for volunteers to organize, present or help running the Chapter. Make this part of your new year’s resolutions! Contact the Board with your ideas, and, if you would like to volunteer for Safe & Secure Online, get in touch with Richard Lane. If you don’t already have them, you will find all contact details on our web site.

Until then, we would like to wish you relaxing holidays, and we are looking forward to seeing you next year. Lets make a difference in 2015.

With kind regards
The Board of the (ISC)² Chapter Switzerland
Peter, Andrej, Camillo, Jean Paul, Rüdiger and Sandro

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