14 October 2016 12:00 am
CICRA Consultancies (Pvt) Ltd, Sri Lanka’s information security training and consultancy provider, participated in the 2016 United States Pacific Command’s Pacific Endeavour conference for the fourth consecutive year recently in Brisbane, Australia.
Nearly 250 military communication experts, non-government organizations and academic advisers from over 20 allied and partner nations were involved in this event.
The 2016 exercise was co-hosted by representatives from the Multinational Communications Interoperability Program (MCIP), a U.S. Pacific Command-sponsored humanitarian assistance and disaster relief information-sharing operation, and the Australian Defense Force.
The objective of the exercise was to provide participants a first-hand learning experience of the importance of speed and interoperability of communication assets when responding to a multinational crisis.
The exercise was specifically designed to improve interoperability of communication technologies among nations in the Indo-Asia Pacific region; and mainly focused on radio, cyber and satellite technologies. Far from a series of lectures, this workshop emphasized more on real-world-type communications and real-world-type events.
The exercise was made up of multiple training modules. Along with CICRA Consultancies, several multinational businesses and internationally-renowned technology consulting firms including DELL, Microsoft, Palo Alto, Cyber Test Systems, Deloitte and Fire Eye delivered training sessions and engaged in discussions at the event.
CICRA Consultant Rajitha Udayanga (B. Tech Eng., MSC (IT), CISSP, CEH) took the stage as he successfully conducted a hands-on training module focusing on incident response. In previous years, CICRA conducted training on ethical hacking, information forensics and disaster management and recovery.
“It was a great pleasure for CICRA to represent Sri Lanka for the 4th consecutive year at the Pacific Command’s Cyber Endeavor. This exercise was aimed to ensure military experts are ahead of technological advances. Last year alone, several high-profile cyber threats and security breaches such as Heartbleed, Shellshock, breach at Target and JP Morgan Chase hoggedseveral headlinesthroughout the year. These breaches had dire consequences and for all we know, it keeps escalating while more criminals continue to enter the cyber world,”said Boshan Dayaratne, CEO of CICRA Holding.
“Look, the perpetrator could be across the world,thusnational boundaries no longer apply. This poses a looming threat to national security. This means we need to be prepared. Of course, there is no silver bullet for cyber-security. However, we should take measures to prevent and mitigate risks and continue to stay resilient,” he added.