With keynote speeches by His Excellency Mohammed Nasser Al-Ghanim, director general of the UAE Telecommunications Regulatory Authority, prominent cryptologist and Founder of BTCounterpane, Bruce Schneier and Jeremiah Grossman, founder &
CTO of White Hat Security, security experts from the Middle East are looking forward to learning from global trends in the technology industry.

"HITBSecConf has established itself as the leading security event in the calendar of security professionals in both Asia and the Middle East," said Hack In The Box (M) Sdn Bhd Founder and CEO Dhillon Andrew Kannabhiran, organiser of the HITBSecConf series.

"With our in-depth knowledge and know-how, this conference has become not only the authoritative occasion for network security experts, but we've also worked towards making HITBSecConf as informative and refreshing as possible," he said.

With training sessions focusing on today's most important security issues, including web application security, Bluetooth and wireless hacking, structured network threat analysis and forensics, telecommunications fraud, and hacking and hardening Oracle, attendees will gain valuable hands-on experience to counter even the most sophisticated network attacks.

The conference, to be held on the 16-17 will host speakers and representatives from leading security and telecommunications companies such as Motorola, Oger Systems, Scanit Middle East, BlueInfy, ArgenISS, and Telspace Systems.

"We would like to thank all of our speakers and sponsors, especially the UAE's Telecommunications Regulatory Authority, who have contributed significantly to our
success. With security on the top of the agenda for the Middle East's businesses and firms, we're certain that this year's event will be even more of a hit with attendees,"
Dhillon added.

Speakers for this year's conference have already stressed their support for what is the only exclusive technology security event in the Middle East.

Additionally, HITBSecConf will be offering two hacking competitions and an online multiplayer game for participants to pit their skills against each other. The Capture The Flag (CTF) competition will see teams attempting to attack opposing teams' servers as
well as defending their own machines from attack. Points will be awarded for every successful attack and defense strategy.

The Zone-H/HITB Hacking Challenge, meanwhile, is a 6-level web-based hack game where participants will be challenged to try to complete all levels in the shortest
possible time.

HITBSecConf2008 - Dubai will also play host to a BZFlag competition organized by the US Army. BZFlag is a free online multiplayer cross-platform open source 3D tank game. The name originates from "Battle Zone capture the Flag" and is one of the most popular open source games ever developed.

Apart from the conference in Dubai, which serves the EMEA region, HITBSecConf is also held annually in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia to cater to the Asian region. Previous years' conferences have made international IT news headlines with coverage from a host of local and international print as well as broadcast media.