Right now, considerable work is being undertaken by the government sector at all levels around the world to ensure they are in a position to be as cyber robust as possible.

Everything from comprehensive audits and documentation to the selection of appropriate strategies and the education of staff must be achieved.

Zscaler's lunchtime roundtable for the media looked at both the role of government in formulating cyber security strategies in the light of Peter Dutton’s call for reviews on Australia’s 2020 Cyber Security Strategy and also looked at how Federal, State and Local Government should respond with best practice to the changing and constant cyber threat.

The press lunch was filmed by me in full, and I tried to keep the faces of those eating mostly out of the frame of the video. Naturally there will be the sound of clinking cutlery, but the discussion was most worthwhile, and if you're involved in any aspect of cybersecurity, you should check out the video in full, embedded below.

• The rise of new nation state cyber threat actors
• How governments and enterprises can stay ahead of security breaches.
• The evolution of cybersecurity
• The demise of legacy security vendors
• The cultural change opportunity with cyber security

There were also a range of questions by a range of top Australian technology journalists, answered ably by the speakers.

Details of the speakers is below the video, please read on!

The speakers included, Nav Pillai, Transformation Director – Program Fortify and General Manager – Design and Development, Cenitex, which is the Victorian Government’s information and communications technology shared services provider.

There was also Richard Stiennon, Author of “There Will be a Cyberwar: How the Move to Network-Centric War Fighting Has Set The Stage for Cyberwar”.

We also heard from Alex Woerndle, Principal Advisor, Cyber Security – Risk & Governance, Ecosystm, as well as Budd Ilic, ANZ Country Manager, Zscaler.

A longer version of the speaker biographies is as follows:

Alex Woerndle, Principal Advisor, Cyber Security – Risk & Governance, Ecosystm

Alex is an experienced manager, director, consultant and keynote speaker with a broad range of experience across the IT sector. In more recent times, Alex has been actively engaged in speaking on cyber security issues to industry forums, board rooms and Australian media. His roles with MyEmpire Group were focussed on providing corporate clients with quality guidance in their information security journey, combining his practical knowledge of cyber breaches with business acumen.

Alex was appointed to the national board of directors for the peak industry body, The Australian Information Security Association, in December 2015 – in early 2016 he took on the role of Deputy Chair. His role at AISA allows him to further promote information security within Australia. Alex has experience across finance, risk, strategy, sales/marketing and IT, and has worked with all levels of organisations across more than 2 decades of business ownership, management and consulting.

He is a graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors and a Certified Lead Auditor for Information Security Management Systems (ISO27001).

Ecosystm is a new age Technology Research and Advisory Firm that brings together tech buyers, vendors and analysts into one integrated platform. The firm moves away from the highly inefficient business models of traditional research firms and instead focuses on data democratisation, with an emphasis on accessibility, transparency and autonomy.

Nav Pillai, Director – Digital Transformation, Cenitex

Nav has more than 20 years of experience in the IT industry and as the Director of Digital Transformation of Cenitex, he is leading a $30m program to transform the business of legacy ICT services consumed by 35,000 plus customer base across Victoria to a modern hybrid-cloud based services that enables better resilience, scale and digital capabilities.

He is also transforming the organisation by restructuring and business process transformation to align the business to focus on customer experience and have a clear accountability and better coordinated engagement with its customers.

Nav has worked at Cenitex for more than eight years in several roles, including Director of Service Delivery and General Manager for Design and Development. He has previously worked for Toll Holdings and IBM Australia.

Richard Stiennon, Author and Analyst

Richard Stiennon is Chief Research Analyst for IT-Harvest, the firm he founded in 2005 to cover the 2,200 vendors that make up the IT security industry. He has presented on the topic of cybersecurity in 29 countries on six continents. He is a lecturer at Charles Sturt University in Australia.

He is the author of Surviving Cyberwar (Government Institutes, 2010) and Washington Post Best Seller, There Will Be Cyberwar. He writes for Forbes, CSO Magazine, and The Analyst Syndicate. He is a member of the advisory board at the Information Governance Initiative and sits on the Responsible Recycling Technical Advisory Board, the standard for electronic waste.

In previous roles, Richard was Chief Strategy Officer for Blancco Technology Group, the Chief Marketing Officer for Fortinet, Inc. and VP Threat Research at Webroot Software. Prior to that he was VP Research at Gartner, Inc. He has a B.S. in Aerospace Engineering and his MA in War in the Modern World from King’s College, London.

Budd Ilic, ANZ Country Manager, Zscaler

Budd Ilic was appointed as Country Manager for Australia and New Zealand for Zscaler in later 2018. Based in Sydney, Budd has more than 25 years’ experience in the IT industry and joined Zscaler from Actifo, where he was ANZ Regional Manager and instrumental in building the company’s business in vertical markets such as financial services and telecommunications.

Previously, he built the Federal Government business at VMware and worked in consulting, pre-sales, and sales management positions for VMware, EMC, Dimension Data, and Ferntree.

Zscaler enables the world’s leading organisations to securely transform their networks and applications for a mobile and cloud-first world. Its flagship services, Zscaler Internet Access and Zscaler Private Access, create fast, secure connections between users and applications, regardless of device, location, or network. Zscaler services are 100 percent cloud-delivered and offer the simplicity, enhanced security, and improved user experience that traditional appliances are unable to match.