It was a rude shock to Bangladesh's economy. Nearly $80 million were stolen from Bangladesh's Central Bank by hackers, one of the largest known bank thefts in history. The hackers breached Bangladesh Bank's systems and stole its credentials for payment transfers.

They then bombarded the Federal Reserve Bank of New York with nearly three dozen requests to move money from the Bangladesh Bank's account there to entities in the Philippines and Sri Lanka. Four requests to transfer a total of about $81 million to the Philippines went through, but a fifth, for $20 million, to a Sri Lankan non-profit organisation was held up because the hackers misspelled the name of the NGO, Shalika Foundation.

This incident once again brings to light the criticality of cyber security for a nation and its economy. And therefore emphasises the need to secure the cyberspace with collaboration from the cyber security community across borders. A need that the soon to be organised information security conference in Colombo, Ground Zero Summit, addresses.

An initiative of the Indian Infosec Consortium, Ground Zero Summit is the largest collaborative platform in Asia for cyber security experts and researchers to address emerging cyber security challenges and demonstrate cutting-edge technologies. It was an exclusive platform in the region providing opportunities to establish and strengthen relationships between the cyber security community and corporates, PSUs, government and its defence establishments.

This is the second time that the Summit comes to Sri Lanka. The last Ground Zero Summit in Colombo with 150-200 participants attending was a huge success. It was a gathering of Sri Lanka's Infosec community, government officials in relevant fields, and some corporates of Sri Lanka. The conference was followed by trainings at Sri Lanka Institute of Information Technology (SLIIT), which was attended by a large number of students and cyber security enthusiasts.

This year too, the Summit aims to benefit Sri Lankan government agencies, defence personal, academic community and enterprises. The strong bond that India and Sri Lanka share in areas of politics, culture and business will be furthered in the cyber space with this event.

Positioned as Asia's foremost information security conference, Ground Zero Summit - 2016, Colombo is an attempt to generate information security awareness and combat cyber threats that both the nations as well as enterprises operating in them are facing.

Copyright: Asia News Network/The Island