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A word from co-chair Greg Bell

Wow! With all of the increased pressures of new and evolving regulations, pervasive and continually aggressive attacks on infrastructure and intellectual property, and more elaborate and sophisticated technology threats, who would have thought that the single most signicant challenge for security professionals in 2009 would be a lack of funding?

The global financial slowdown has impacted secu­rity organizations from large and small corporations, to state and federal agencies, to the security vendor community. Everyone is feeling the pinch and striving to “do more with less,” at a time where spending for information security should probably be increasing.

Over the last eight or so months, our clients have seen a demonstrable increase in reported incidents of electronic fraud, information theft and insider threats. At the same time, organizations are responding to the external business pressures by rapidly changing busi­ness strategies and executing major operational shifts including unplanned mergers, divestitures, entering and exiting global markets, and introduction of new products and services. All of these challenges put additional strain and pressure on already overworked security professionals.

Luckily, most of the security pros that I've been lucky enough to work with always seek to rise to new challenges. They are tackling these challenges with a relish and discovering new ways to control these threats and secure our business and govern­ment infrastructures. The innovation and deter­mination of our security community has served to protect each of us.

It's the innovation of the information security com­munity that we are celebrating tonight. The profes­sionals and solution engineers that have brought new approaches to securing our infrastructures, leading edge thinking, and rapid response to changing require­ments has had a real and meaningful impact to our industry and our communities. To them we say thank you for all the hard work. Please continue the mission.

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