Cybertech Global 2020 brings cyber security experts from around the world to Israel’s economic powerhouse. Representatives from companies like Microsoft, IBM or Nestle attend, as well as scientists, government ministers and members of the intelligence community. Israel is home to many of the leading companies in the field of cyber security.
One of the big trends at the conference was operational technology (OT) - computer technology used to run or monitor the physical state of systems. Simply put: OT runs things like cars or elevators or infrastructure like power plants or water treatment facilities. Some of the speakers presented examples of how such systems can be breached and their ideas for protecting them. This included tricking a self-driving car into exceeding the speed limit and stopping as well as manipulating a CT-scan so that it would deliver a false cancer diagnosis.
Other key topics were protection against the abuse of legitimate access, so called insider threats. Artificial intelligence in cybersecurity was also an important topic. Cylance, the cyber security software used by Perseus, uses AI in the form of an Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) solution to better protect its users against threats. At the same time, there are also efforts underway by cyber criminals to use AI for their nefarious aims.