T’puram: Kochi will host the 19th edition of Cocon, one of country’s longest-running cybersecurity and hacking conferences, from Oct 6 to 13 at the Grand Hyatt, Bolgatty, announced state police chief Ravada A Chandrasekhar on Tuesday.Organised under the leadership of Kerala Police, the eight-day conference will bring together cybersecurity professionals, law enforcement agencies, govt representatives, industry leaders, researchers, academicians and students from India and abroad. The conference, themed ‘Empowering Cyber Resilience: Strategy, Deep-Tech, and Global Enforcement‘, is expected to feature more than 200 speakers, 3,000 participants, delegates from over 20 countries and more than 20 technical training programmes.The event will be held in three phases, with pre-conference technical training from Oct 6 to 8, the main conference on Oct 9 and 10, and post-conference training from Oct 11 to 13.The programme will focus on areas including artificial intelligence, cybersecurity governance, financial technology, research, operational technology, IoT and hardware security, law enforcement and child sexual exploitation and abuse.Among the speakers are SBI chairperson Challa Sreenivasulu Setty, NSE MD and CEO Ashish Kumar Chauhan, UAE head of cyber security Mohamed Al Kuwaiti, CERT-in director general Sanjay Bahl, Oman National CERT director general eng. Badar Al Salehi and INTERPOL Office of Internal Oversight CISO Bjorn Richard Watne.The conference will also feature master classes, round tables, Capture the Flag competitions, cybersecurity villages and live bug bounty activities. A 25,000 sq ft exhibition area will showcase cybersecurity technologies and solutions.Kerala Police will have a dedicated post-conference training session on the dark web and anonymised networks. The programme, titled ‘The Dark Web: Beyond the Anonymity‘, is aimed at strengthening investigators’ capabilities in dealing with cybercrime involving the Tor network, hidden services, digital traces and cryptocurrency ecosystems. The conference will also focus on strengthening law enforcement capabilities.
