ANZ Cyber Summit and OTsec ANZ Summit to Debut in Sydney, Focusing on Cyber and OT Resilience

The Colocated Events Will Address Geopolitical Risk, AI Governance and Critical Infrastructure Protection

Princeton, NJ – QG Media, an ISMG company, is set to launch the ANZ Cyber Summit, co-hosted with the OTsec ANZ Summit, on Sept. 15 and 16, 2026, in Sydney, Australia.

Building on the success of QG Media’s global IT and cybersecurity event series, the colocated summits will unite more than 200 senior IT and OT security leaders from critical infrastructure, energy, financial services and manufacturing organizations across Australia and New Zealand to confront the region’s escalating threat landscape.

Against a backdrop of geopolitical volatility, accelerating AI adoption and mounting regulatory pressure, security leaders across the region are confronting risks that increasingly sit outside their direct control – from third-party dependencies to critical infrastructure exposure.

“Security leaders across Australia and New Zealand are being asked to make difficult decisions as strategic, technological and operational challenges increasingly intersect,” said Kudsia Kaker, managing director at QG Media. “The ANZ Cyber Summit will focus on the questions they are confronting now: how to adopt AI without compromising sensitive data, how to manage dependencies they do not control, and how to keep essential operations running when prevention fails.”

ANZ Cyber Summit: Enterprise Risk in Spotlight

Centered on the theme “The Maturity Shift: Moving From Compliance to Resilience,” the featured sessions include:

• The opening panel, “Sovereign Risk: How Do We Counter the Effects of Geopolitical Volatility on ANZ Cybersecurity?” moderated by Vanessa Tsaccounis, CISO at the University of Wollongong, examines what geopolitical volatility means for regional infrastructure, supply chains and vendor relationships, and where intelligence-sharing and secure-by-design alignment can help.
• Gaurav Vikash, head of security and risk, APAC, at Axon, explores how to control shadow AI and define responsibility across security, legal and IT in the session “AI Governance: We Are Building on Foundations We Do Not Fully Understand.”
• “Strengthening the Chain: A Case Study on Third-Party IT Security Assessment” presented by Nikita Newell, CISO at Lendlease, tackles how to assess vendors, interpret security reports and address vulnerabilities in business-critical software.

OTsec ANZ Summit: Securing Critical Infrastructure

The colocated OTsec ANZ summit turns to the operational technology side of the same challenge under the theme “The Secure Ecosystem: Aligning People, Standards and Systems in OT.” Sessions include:

• In the session “Building Cyber-Resilient OT Systems: IEC 62443 in Practice,” John Morcos, head of cybersecurity governance and operations at Blackmores, breaks down how to operationalize the standard as ANZ regulators increasingly adopt it.
• “Mirroring Defense: Why Digital Twins Are the Future of OT Security,” presented by Amish Patel, director of OT cybersecurity and technology at Transport for NSW, unpacks how digital twin monitoring can catch deviations that signature-based detection misses.
• In the session “Future-Proofing Industrial Control: Dealing With the Critical OT Security Skills Shortage,” Dominic Grunden, CISO at Power and Water Corporation, lays out practical strategies for building internal OT security capability amid a widening talent gap.

Together, the ANZ Cyber Summit and OTsec ANZ Summit will give regional leaders real-world case studies, practical guidance on frameworks, including IEC 62443 and Australia’s critical infrastructure legislation, and direct engagement with peers navigating the same third-party risks and skills shortages.

For program details and registration, visit the ANZ Cyber Summit or OTsec ANZ Summit pages.

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About ISMG

Information Security Media Group (ISMG) is the world’s largest media organization devoted solely to cybersecurity, information technology, artificial intelligence and operational technology. Each of our 38 media properties provides education, research and news that is specifically tailored to key vertical sectors including banking, healthcare and the public sector; geographies from North America to Southeast Asia; and topics such as data breach prevention, cyber risk assessment, OT security, AI and fraud. Our annual global summit series connects senior security professionals with industry thought leaders to find actionable solutions for pressing cybersecurity challenges.

About QG Media

QG Media is an international provider of cutting-edge B2B conferences and digital content for technology leaders. Focusing on cybersecurity and IoT, QG brings together business leaders to demonstrate thought leadership through content-driven presentations, interviews and webinars. The success of any QG Media event lies in providing expertly curated programs, inviting industry leading speakers, along with offering extensive networking opportunities to promote collaboration and drive innovation.

About ISMG Events

ISMG Events is a premier platform for security professionals and practitioners worldwide. Our global, annual events bring together the ISMG Events Community, comprising over 40,000 members, to exchange knowledge, insights and best practices in the field of cybersecurity. The cornerstone of our event portfolio is the ISMG Global Summit Series. These summits take place both virtually and in-person, offering participants a diverse range of topics to explore. In addition to our Global Summit Series, ISMG Events hosts exclusive Executive Roundtables that are closed-door, topic-focused discussions that provide practitioners with a collaborative environment to address today’s most pressing security concerns.