The 62nd M3AAWG General Meeting, held in Toronto, Ontario from October 7-10, marks a continued celebration of 20 years of fostering a collaborative, global forum that unites the industry in combating and preventing online abuse. This event will feature sessions focused on educating members about emerging technologies, associated threats, and actionable recommendations. In addition, M3AAWG will collaborate with the Unsolicited Communications Enforcement Network (UCENet) to further enhance its efforts.
To set the stage for the week, M3AAWG is honored and excited to welcome Dr. Douglas Stebila, Associate Professor of cryptography in the Department of Combinatorics & Optimization at the University of Waterloo to participate in a keynote fireside chat to discuss “Emerging innovations for protecting information, communications, and how will this impact our online Anti-Abuse journey?”. His research focuses on improving the security of Internet communications protocols and developing practical quantum-resistant cryptography. He holds an MSc from the University of Oxford and a PhD from the University of Waterloo.
Dr. Stebila is the co-founder of the Open Quantum Safe project, an open-source software project for prototyping and evaluating quantum-resistant cryptography. The chat will explain the critical role that cryptography plays as the foundation of modern security systems for protecting sensitive information and ensuring the security of communications. Additionally included will be a view into new emerging innovations the online Anti-Abuse community must consider adopting to proactively help mitigate against these new threats.
Later in the day, Dr. Stebila will continue to provide valuable insights, in a general session for M3AAWG 62 attendees, by presenting “A Real-World Law Enforcement Breach of End-to-End Encrypted Messaging: The Case of Encrochat”. This session will walk through techniques used by malicious actors (organized crime groups) to compromise communications that resulted in exfiltrated data, financial loss, and seizure of illegal drugs.
Artificial Intelligence and its impact on the online Anti-Abuse community will continue to be a key Priority and Focus Area for the foreseeable future. The newly formed AI committee has been working diligently to shape how M3AAWG and the global community should respond to associated emerging innovations that shift the overall online threat landscape. With that, the Toronto General Meeting will include several AI sessions, including: “Fully Autonomous Pen-Testing Using AI Agents” and an AI Committee Working Session focused on furthering documentation and discussions around AI abuse detection and prevention.
In keeping with M3AAWG’s core foundation of being a working group that provides best practice guidance, the Data & Identity Protection committee will host a general session, “The Evolving and Emerging online abuse Threat Landscape - How should M3AAWG prepare for it to succeed”, to discuss the overall constantly changing online abuse landscape, emerging technologies, threats, and recommendations for what the community can do now and how to structure future work to be successful in fighting online abuse practively.
M3AAWG’s global trusted forum would not be successful without the valuable contributions from its volunteer members, partners, and supporting communities. M3AAWG remains committed to its core priority of ensuring a diverse, equitable, inclusive, and belonging culture. The Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging committee will continue hosting sessions focused on sharing how different experiences and perspectives are the building blocks and core foundation of the global online Anti-Abuse working group.
The week will be full of many more exciting informative sessions in addition to valuable collaboration and networking opportunities for members and invited guests.