ISO expert nominated Luxembourg convenor of international IT security standards committee

INCERT has supported the nomination of Johann Amsenga, member of the Luxembourgish register of experts in international standards (managed by ILNAS, the Luxembourg’s standards body), as convenor for a 3-year mandate of the ISO JTC 1/SC 27/Working Group 4 (WG4) IT Security techniques — Security controls and services.
Mr. Amsenga, who has worked in information security for 20 years, has been recently reconducted as convenor of the ISO JTC 1/SC 27/WG 4, which brings together hundreds of experts from nearly 50 countries to cover aspects related to ICT security; information lifecycle, organisational processes, security aspects of trust services; as well as internet security related technologies and architectures.
“It’s a privilege to work under the Luxembourg flag,” Mr. Amsenga said, adding: “Luxembourg has a position in Europe as one of leaders in the digital economy, and security is a key component that supports it. Luxembourg is now taking a leading role in the development of international standards.”
The ISO JTC 1/SC 27/WG 4 includes experts from a wide-range of international companies, including Amazon, Apple, Deloitte, Google, IBM, Microsoft, Oracle and many more. Projects are diverse, but areas being addressed include cloud computing security, big data and cybersecurity, PKI, IoT and incident management, among others.
Speaking about the nomination, INCERT General director Benoit Poletti added: “Luxembourg has a digital champion in standardisation, as Johann Amsenga is responsible for ensuring ISO standards within information and cyber security are properly handled. We have an international expert who is responsible
for some of the most important ISO standards in cloud computing, cybersecurity, big data, IoT, application security etc. This great achievement reflects the fact that we are respected at international level for our commitment in standardisation activities, and it has allowed us to reach a new level of excellence. By having Mr. Amsenga as convenor of the ISO JTC 1/SC 27/WG 4, we will also gain in visibility in terms of standard projects that may impact our digital economy.”
Mr. Amsenga started his career in the field at the South African Communications Security Agency (SACSA) and has been working at Armscor for the past 15 years. He has worked on various projects to fulfil information algorithms and re-engineering open source products in custom security, including large projects such as the security specification for the Next Generation Network (NGN) of the South African National Defence Force.
Mr. Amsenga holds a Master’s degree in Computer Engineering from the University of Pretoria and a National Certificate in Datametrics from the University of South Africa.