In 2010, BBVA and the Rey Juan Carlos University created the “Technological Risk Management Research Centre” to research new technological applications to prevent fraud. The idea was to create a flexible and dynamic environment in which to develop and test new technologies involving resources and knowledge from the two worlds of universities and private enterprise, as Santiago Moral (CISO -Chief Information Security Officer of the BBVA Group) explained in the interview published in this blog on 13 June.

Now, one year after being created, the “Technological Risk Management Research Centre” has had its public presentation with a course (“The technological fight against organised fraud”. Aranjuez, 4 to 8 July) being held as part of the 2011 Summer Courses organised by the Rey Juan Carlos University Foundation.

The 90 participants on this course (including students from the Rey Juan Carlos University, professionals and sector experts, technological security managers from all the countries where BBVA has a presence and Central Bank representatives from these countries) had the chance to receive first-hand information on the latest methods of attacking online authentication mechanisms, as well as IT infrastructures, the risks of social networks and, in general, current and future trends in technological crime.

A large number of renowned anti-fraud and security experts from Spain and around the world helped to deliver the course:

Alberto Partida, a specialist in technological security and author of the book “IT Securiteers. Setting up an IT Security Function”. Gary Warner, Director of Research in Computer Forensics at the UAB (University of Alabama at Birmingham).   Adrian Davis, analyst at the ISF (Information Security Forum). José Antonio Mañas, Senior Professor at the Higher Technical School of Telecommunications Engineering, UPM (Technical University of Madrid). Víctor Chapela, Chairman and General Manager of Sm4rt Security. Richard Stiennon, Chief Research Analyst, IT Harvest. Artemi Rallo, Director of the AEPD (Spanish Data Protection Agency). Ángel Trinidad Zaldívar. Commissioner of the IFAI (Mexican Federal Institute for Access to Information and Personal Data) and Tom Scholtz, an  analyst at Gartner.

Two round table discussions were also held. The first of these, moderated by José de la Peña (Editor-in-chief of the magazine SIC), examined ‘New Threats’ with presentations from David Barroso (S21Sec e-Crime), Fernando García Vicent (Mnemo Group), Juan Jesús León Cobos (GMV Soluciones Globales Internet), Elena Maestre García (PWC), Alfonso Martín Palma (Indra), Rafael Ortega García (Ernst & Young), Tomás Roy Catalá (Telecommunications and Information Technologies Centre – CTTI), Juan Salom Clotet (Telematic Crime Group of the Civil Guard) and Marta Villén Sotomayor (Telefónica Spain).

The second round table discussion, moderated by Esperanza Marcos (Rey Juan Carlos University), examined ‘Privacy in the Cloud’ with the participation of Manuel Carpio Cámara (Telefónica), Francisco Javier García Carmona (Iberdrola), Guillermo Llorente Ballesteros (Mapfre), Idoia Mateo Murillo (Produban, Santander Group), Justo López Parra (Endesa), Carles Solé Pascual (La Caixa) and Francisco Javier Puyol (BBVA Legal Services).

The course was brought to a close by Santiago Moral, who gave an unusual presentation on how we can use knowledge of the co-evolution of species to develop technological innovation strategies that can be applied to Risk Management.

In conclusion, this interesting course, which was tweeted with the hashtag #CVGTR11, will continue through a ‘video book’ containing all the presentations and debates. We’ll keep you posted.