I’m not much of a gambler when I go to Las Vegas. Studies show that the house has approximately a 10 percent advantage on slots and 7 percent on blackjack. While other games might give you slightly better odds, they can require a lot of skill, and the scale is still tipped in favor of the house. However, this year at IBM InterConnect 2016, there is one sure thing to bet on: security intelligence and analytics.

There is no better place to make that bet than InterConnect. There, you can do two things at once: Learn about new security solutions to help you in 2016 and have fun.

The continued growth and sophistication of security threats is causing enterprises to rethink their security strategies. One place where you can learn more about new security strategies, technologies and solutions is in the Security Intelligence and Analytics track at InterConnect 2016, held in Las Vegas from Feb. 21 to 25.

Many Great Topics and Speakers

In this track, you will hear about new techniques for combating the security challenges we face on a day-to-day basis. It will feature speakers in nine different industries from 12 countries across the globe; in fact, 70 percent of the sessions will include clients and/or business partners.

They will be joined by IBM technical security experts from the development lab, product management, services, strategy, business development and more. There will also be panel sessions with minimal or no PowerPoints (audience participation and discussion is encouraged), a workshop and a hands-on lab.

To get an idea of just how exciting this track will be, check out the session preview tool and use the agenda builder to create your own schedule. But before you do, have a look at the following session highlights:

• The CTO and IBM Fellow of the IBM Security Systems Division, along with technical experts from IBM, will host a panel session. Here, the audience can ask questions about any security issue they want and also hear about how IBM Security and Watson form a powerful combination to address security challenges (SIA No. 4107).
• The CISO of HSBC, one of the world’s largest banking and financial services organizations, will describe how it is moving from having regional security teams to an automated, world-class global cybersecurity operations capability (SIA No. 6439).
• Representatives from IBM QRadar Development and Business Development, along with five business partners, will participate in a panel session where they will cover the benefits to customers, developers and other business partners of the new IBM Security App Exchange (SIA No. 3052).
• New, cloud-based security intelligence solutions for improving security and threat protection will be described using a retail deployment as an example (SIA No. 3294).
• Allianz Australia will discuss how it implemented an enterprise-class SIEM solution that integrated with other third-party products (SIA No. 4506).
• The University of New Brunswick and Trend Micro will speak about building a hybrid cloud security deployment based on automated threat detection, a digital immune system and virtualization (SIA No. 3510).
• Oppenheimer Funds and STEALTHbits will cover user behavior analytics for detecting threats with IBM Security QRadar (SIA No. 3572).
• Enel, an Italian energy and utilities firm, will present how it teamed up with IBM to develop security intelligence solutions for industrial control systems (SIA No. 7045).

The Security Intelligence and Analytics Track Goes Beyond the Classroom

In addition to the educational breakout sessions, you can enjoy customer engagement center sessions, meet-the-expert sessions and customer feedback roundtables. There will also be a strong presence in the IBM Security booth No. 314 on the Expo floor, where you can talk to solution experts and see a demo of security products.

Be sure to attend the security stream kickoff on Monday, Feb. 22, starting at 10:30 a.m. in Oceanside, Mandalay E in the Mandalay Bay Conference Center.

Have Fun!

Remember the expression “all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy”? Well get ready to be entertained at the MGM on Wednesday night, Feb. 24, with Sir Elton John.

If you haven’t already done so, I encourage you to register for InterConnect and invite your colleagues to do the same. This is going to be an outstanding event and I look forward to seeing you in Las Vegas.