Opening Remarks by Ir. Allen YEUNG, JP, Government Chief Information Officer, at the "Gala Dinner and Award Presentation of the Asia-Pacific Information Security Leadership Achievements"

Mr. (David) Shearer, Dr. (Jae-Woo) Lee, Dr. (Meng-Chow) Kang, Mr. (Clayton) Jones, ladies and gentlemen,

I am very pleased to be back for this evening’s gathering and networking dinner. After a full day of intensive sharing, I am sure it’s time for a bit of relaxing and networking for everyone. This evening is also a time to congratulate and recognise the honourees of ISLA this year. It is very important to recognise such great achievers and contributors to the cyber security industry.

Whether we like it or not, cyber attacks are here to stay. Instead of retreating, we are seeing actually their growing in sophistication and scale. It has grown from computer network attacks to IoT network attacks. As we get more and more connected with all kinds of devices, this gets a lot more intense. It has grown from being a very local and regional to a global scale as what we have seen in the “WannaCry” incident. It has grown from just a few gangs to very much concerted syndication efforts hiding behind the dark web. The solution for all these is right here in the room. You are our saviours. The expertise, the know-how and experience represented by you and all the honourees, and the achievements of the awardees would provide the right defence against such cyber attacks.

I would like to congratulate those who are being recognised today and those who have been recognised in the past years and also in the years to come. We cannot just rely on pure technology in facing such growing cyber threats but it is really the talents, the people who are making the difference. It is the future of our young generation we can cultivate to come into the industry and join in as part of our forces.

It is very important that we join hands not only among the CERT bodies but also the professional industries and the companies which are specialised in cyber security. There would be platforms that we have to establish to share such expertise and information. Hong Kong is global player in sharing and protecting not just Hong Kong but also the region and the world.

We have prepared to make investments and to fight together with all of you against cyber attacks. So, let us join hands in achieving such goal. Let me close my speech by congratulating (ISC)² for holding the ISLA award and I hope you all enjoy the evening. Thank you so much.

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