Trip Report: Transform to Evolve at Cybercon2025

I attended Cybercon 2025 last week and it was great seeing people, catching up with solution vendors and hearing the latest news from the Australian cybersecurity industry. As the largest cyber conference in Australia, it attracts the best speakers (over 350) and innovators. The interactive format—think tanks, breakout sessions, and plenaries—was a hit, and I’m sure the over 5000 attendees were excited about the packed agenda and the potential insights to be gained.

I congratulate all the award winners and was excited by the enthusiasm that Australians have for building a cyber-safe culture; it’s about people, communication, and shared responsibility.

Lieutenant General Michelle McGuinness told us that good cyber health practices need to become instinctive - practised until they are baked into everyday behaviours. We must unite across both government and industry to enhance our collective cyber security. I feel that cybersecurity is now a boardroom priority, with leaders demanding real-time visibility to inform strategic decisions.

My observations from the conference:

• New technologies and technology vendors continue to emerge, providing innovative solutions for cloud security, encompassing AI and automation. The marketing team at Wiz are commended for an innovative booth that brought punters in. As a relatively new entrant to the market, they are already leading the way and Vectra is working with them closely.
  
  
• For the larger solution providers, I see them expanding their offerings into new spaces, expanding their portfolios through acquisitions and capability expansion. Large multinationals are using AI tech to branch into new security pillars, providing complete solutions for their customers. Crowdstrike has recently introduced the Fall release of the CrowdStrike Falcon® platform - their Agentic Security Platform, marking a shift from reactive defenses to proactive, AI-driven security. Check Point have partnered with Wiz’s Cloud-Native Application Protection Platform (CNAPP), and have acquired new tech capability for securing AI LLMs, AI agents, and multimodal workflows. They’ve also added to their SASE capability with recent announcements.
• Are people looking for an all-you-can-eat solution? At Vectra we’ve provided a platform solution for clients who are tired of putting it all together and getting it to work effectively. They get one vendor to provide their security defences and can see all activity in one dashboard.
  For other clients, using individual best-of-breed technology vendors have been selected for their advanced capability, and maybe economics (which is cheaper?).
  The choice is dependent on your risk profile, criticality of business systems, your willingness to build in redundancy, and ultimately your board’s appetite for more security spend. There are trade offs - AWS went down this week, Crowdstrike had an issue last year. How well do they handle issues and resolve service delivery? 𝗧𝗶𝗺 𝗕𝗿𝗼𝘄𝗻, in his keynote (𝗖𝗜𝗦𝗢, 𝗦𝗼𝗹𝗮𝗿𝗪𝗶𝗻𝗱𝘀) said “𝘈𝘧𝘵𝘦𝘳 𝘢 𝘣𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘤𝘩, 𝘵𝘰 𝘸𝘪𝘯 𝘣𝘢𝘤𝘬 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘩𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘵𝘴 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘮𝘪𝘯𝘥𝘴, 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘯𝘦𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘰 𝘣𝘦 𝘦𝘹𝘦𝘮𝘱𝘭𝘢𝘳𝘺 𝘪𝘯 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘱𝘴 𝘮𝘰𝘷𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘸𝘢𝘳𝘥.” Vendors making headlines lately would do well to pay attention.
• Where was Microsoft?
• And as an F1 enthusiast, hearing from 𝗚𝘂𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗿 𝗦𝘁𝗲𝗶𝗻𝗲𝗿 was a standout moment! I highly recommend the audiobook version of Surviving to Drive (he narrates it himself, which makes it even better).

After an incredible week in Melbourne it was great to make the trip back to Adelaide, filled with new ideas and new connections. I’m sure I’ll be back for #cybercon2026!