Leaders in public and private sector organisations, along with academics, will share cybersecurity and trust stories at this year’s GMIT Digital West conference. The annual conference takes place fully online next week.
The free event will be streamed at digitalwest.biz on Tuesday January 25 from 10am until 1pm. The conference will be opened by GMIT president Dr Orla Flynn at 10am. Guest speakers include Dr Eoin Byrne and Eamon Larkin, Cyber Ireland; Aoife Long, cyber skills education and public engagement manager, MTU; Mathie Gorge, CEO at VigiTrust; Dr Seamus Dowling, cybersecurity lecturer, GMIT; Paul Johnson, cyber forensics manager, AGS; Colm Healy, founder and CEO of Corrata; Louise O Sullivan, security services manager, and Lei Shao, security and risk advisor at HEAnet; and Rebecca Springett, Titan HQ leading cloud security.
“GMIT is delighted to be hosting the fifth annual Digital West conference in partnership with the Mayo Local Enterprise Office and our Atlantic Technological University partners IT Sligo and Letterkenny IT,” said GMIT president Dr Orla Flynn. “The theme of this year’s free online conference – cybersecurity and trust – has enormous relevance for public and private sector organisations but also for us as individuals in society. There is a great line-up of speakers and this is an event not to be missed,”
One of the changes wrought by the Covid-19 pandemic was the forced shift to a hybrid office model and subsequent rise in the number of cyberattacks targeting organisations and companies through home offices, according to the recent ENISA Threat Landscape 2021 report.
Recent statistics reveal that 68 per cent of business leaders feel their cybersecurity risks are increasing (Accenture ), while personal data was involved in 58 per cent of breaches in 2020 (Verizon ).
On average, an employee has access to 11 million files (Varonis ); however more than 77 per cent of organizations do not have an incident response plan (Cybint ).
“Cybersecurity is no longer just an IT problem,” said Andrea Manning, founder of Cyberpie and MC at Digital West 2022. “It affects us all — whether it’s a ransomware attack that hits the payroll software that sends you your salary, the takeover of your social media accounts, or the loss of customer trust due to a data breach. As an industry we should be doing more to educate people about what they can do rather than what they can’t do. The panel of speakers at Digital West this year does just that.”
Laura Hegarty, lecturer in IT, GMIT, and one of the founders of Digital West, added: “This event is a real opportunity for us all to learn about the threats, big and small, and changes we can implement to help secure our data. The speakers will bring real-life experiences to the discussions and give all attendees tips to take away and reflect upon. Cybersecurity is very much a human problem with 95 per cent of cybersecurity breaches caused by human error. This year’s theme, cybersecurity and trust, is for everyone, not just the technically minded. We will look forward to seeing you online on the day.”
The free online event will be streamed live on January 25 from 10am on digitalwest.biz and gmitihubs.clr.events/event/131917:digital-west-2022
Hosted by GMIT since 2018, previous themes of Digital West conferences have been digital transformation (2021 ), remote working (2020 ), design thinking (2019 ), and digital trends (2018 ).
Further information on GMIT courses in digital media and marketing, cybersecurity, and digitalisation for SMEs as well as all other Springboard/HCI funded upskilling courses, is available at www.gmit.ie/business/school-business
