Operation Defend the North 2024: Fortifying Canadian Cyber Resilience
Operation Defend the North 2024 gathered a formidable contingent of Canada’s leading cybersecurity executives and strategists for a high-impact, focused event dedicated to addressing the nation’s most critical digital defense challenges. The forum was successfully hosted at the elegant Hotel X, providing a premier setting for senior leaders to collaborate on complex security and risk issues.
Overall Highlights and Themes
The central theme of the event was fortifying Canadian cyber resilience through strong executive leadership and cross-sector collaboration. Discussions were clearly structured around three critical pillars:
Critical Infrastructure Protection (CIP): With leaders from CN Rail (Vaughn Hazen), the Greater Toronto Airports Authority (Osman Saleem), and the TTC (Anshul Srivastava), sessions focused heavily on defending operational technology (OT) and maintaining service continuity against sophisticated threats.
Financial and Health Sector Security:
Significant attention was given to highly regulated industries, featuring CISOs from major institutions like Equifax Canada (Octavia Howell), TD Bank (Terence Malatombee), Bank of Canada (Olawumi Alofe-Babalola), and Unity Health Toronto (Abdul Karim).
Governance, Risk, and Compliance (GRC):
The need for robust policy and strategy was highlighted by government and regulatory attendees, including Sherry Rumbolt (Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat) and Kristi Honey (Township of Uxbridge), ensuring that technical defense is backed by effective governance.
Speakers and Sponsors
Speakers: The speaker roster was a powerful assembly of C-suite security leaders, government officials, and specialist consultants. The event was led by Ali Abbas Hirji (Chair of Operation at siberX). Keynotes and sessions featured strategic advisors like Bil Harmer (Craft Ventures) and Renee Guttmann (CisoHive), alongside deep-dive expertise from Dr. Eman Hammad (PwC) on cyber-physical security and Cat Coode on data privacy. Crucially, the presence of representatives from the RCMP (Kris E) and CSIS (Terry T) ensured the dialogue included the latest insights on national threat intelligence and investigations.
Sponsors:
The event demonstrated massive industry backing, with sponsorship spanning the global and local cybersecurity landscapes. Major sponsors included industry giants like AWS, BELL, IBM, JUNIPER NETWORKS, and MNP. This core group was complemented by essential specialized security partners such as ARCTIC WOLF, VEEAM, GUARDICORE, and PROOFPOINT, who provided cutting-edge vendor solutions. Furthermore, the commitment to regional cyber health was affirmed by community partners like the Durham REGION, the Town of Ajax, and the ISACA Toronto Chapter.
YouTube Playlist
Related video content, including event footage and potentially session summaries, can be found via the organizer’s platform. For recordings and highlights, attendees and interested parties should check the official YouTube channel playlists provided by the host organization, siberX, at: https://www.youtube.com/@siberxorg/playlists.
