Guest editorial

Citation

Ginodman, V., Obelets, N. and Herkanaidu, R. (2013), "Guest editorial", Information Management & Computer Security, Vol. 21 No. 2. https://doi.org/10.1108/imcs.2013.04621baa.001

Guest editorial

Article Type: Guest editorial From: Information Management & Computer Security, Volume 21, Issue 2

Kaspersky believes that everyone has the right to be free from the fear of cybercrime. This shared belief is driven by the passion and vision of its founder and CEO Eugene Kaspersky. Education therefore plays a big part in this. We want to promote IT security and also enhance the status of security researchers.

The IT security for the next generation conference series aims to provide a collaborative environment in which students, experts, scientists and researchers can get together to present and discuss issues relating to IT security. It is also a platform for the next generation of experts to share their knowledge and ideas, inspiring them to push the limits of IT security technology still further. It is designed for anyone from the world of higher education, whether undergraduate or postgraduate.

The format of the conferences is in the form of a competition. Students from universities of each of the region submit a paper related to IT security. In 2012 there were four regional competitions; North America, Asia-Pacific, Middle East and Africa, Russia and Commonwealth of Independent States, and Europe.

Each of the submitted papers was then assessed by the Programme Committee made up of selected university professors and Kaspersky Lab experts. The authors of the top 12-15 papers in each region are invited, as Kaspersky’s guests, to present their work at their respective conference.

The main event at the conference is the student presentations. They have 10 min to impress the program committee and then face a further 5 min of questions. The top three presenters win cash prizes and an invitation to compete at the international student conference alongside the winners of the other regional rounds.

However, these conferences are not just about the competition. Students have a valuable opportunity to connect with peers, professors and Kaspersky Lab experts in a relaxed and engaging environment. They receive presentation skills training; take part in team building activities, security workshops, a sightseeing tour and gala dinner.

The selected papers presented here were finalists at the International Conference which took place at Delft Technical University in The Netherlands from 11-13 May 2012. They take on security challenges that vary from; social engineering, identity management, security of anonymous networks like TOR and of embedded systems like Cisco IOS which is used in routers and switches. The range of topics highlight the need of security to be at the heart of any development, whether they be for hardware, software, applications, or services, especially if they are connected to the online world.

Veniamin Ginodman, Natalya Obelets, Ram HerkanaiduGuest Editors