‘White Hats v Black Hats’ – Day Two.

The Cloud and Cyber Security Expo 12 – 13 March 2019 ExCel London Superheroes yesterday, headgear is my metaphor for the second day of this important anti-cybercrime exhibition and conference. As is usual at these events, the hall was quieter than Day One, but nonetheless more than busy enough with the positive vibe from Tuesday permeating the stands and presentation theatres. Being a fan of efficiency, I headed straight to the QBS Village to talk to some of their stand partners whom I missed the previous day. First I spoke with Noel Slane of OPSWAT. This impressive outfit has a straightforward approach using two key products: MetaAccess (‘trust no device’); and MetaDefender (‘trust no file’). With headquarters in San Francisco, OPSWAT had half a dozen regional offices across the globe, including Northern Ireland. Their patented technology acts as a formidable gatekeeper at every conceivable entry-point – physical or virtual – of any organisation. OPSWAT’s customers include defence and government agencies in Europe and North America as well as over a thousand corporations. Next, the Webroot pod, manned by Sales Engineer Fran Bourke, over from Dublin. Webroot’s SecureAnywhere is a well-established cybersecurity platform with core modules for DNS protection and Business endpoint protection. Webroot are keen for QBSD as a partner to help them build their business in the MSP space (a common aim with virtually all the companies I spoke to). Fran was happy with some of the good leads he’d picked up over the two days of the show.

“We were delighted with the visitor engagement at the QBS Cyber Village which was busy throughout the two days. It was particularly pleasing to understand the challenges faced by the visitors and the solutions suggested by our vendor partner community.”– Dave Stevinson

Other partners in the QBS Village included RedStor, a British cloud back-up specialist whose headquarters are in Reading, UK. They have a strong presence in the schools sector but aiming to grow both within and beyond that vertical. And Untangle from California, whose NG Firewall is an enterprise-grade network security platform for organisations of any size. One last tour of the hall before heading for home. I stopped by at the very impressive Neustar stand, which I should mention offered the best complimentary snacks. Neustar is the latest addition to QBSD’s impressive list of distribution partners, a direct result of networking at this show. The company has an impressive range of performance products and services with a defence portfolio which protects against an array of threats, among them in particular Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks. Exploring the floor both days, I noticed that of the eighty or so exhibitors at the show, more than two dozen are existing and active QBSD partners. I would have needed at least another two days again to get around to them all. This is firm testimony, it seems to me, of the Wembley distributor’s dedication to the cybersecurity sector. Back to the QBS Village to bid farewell. As an exhibition stand it was easily the most energetic and hard-working that I saw at the show, with QBSD personnel Petros, Maria, John, Shuan, Martin, Bobbie and Lorenzo led by managing director Dave Stevinson. They constantly engaged delegates, answered questions, introduced them to stand partners who themselves got into the spirit of zapping badges and chatting to passers-by. Not surprising, then, that the QBS stand harvested more delegate names than any other in the hall. This is confirmed by verified data from the organisers and proof it any were needed that QBSD is a formidable software distributor and partner.

Author: Mike Paterson