Small and medium sized businesses in Galway are being encouraged to sign up for a free seminar which will help prepare them against cyber attacks.
Recent research showed that as many as three out of five (61% ) of small and medium businesses have reported at least one cyber attack during the previous year, while 43% of all data breaches involve small and medium sized businesses. Despite these statistics illustrating how common a problem this is becoming, the majority of small and medium businesses (54% ) believe they are too small for a cyber attack and almost half (47% ) have no understanding of how to protect themselves against an attack of this nature.
Further research also shows that more than eight out of ten small and medium sized businesses are not financially prepared to recover from a cyber attack, while a recent US study showed that 60% of small businesses that are the victim of a cyber attack go out of business within six months.
Small and medium businesses who are concerned about defending themselves against these type of attacks can receive advice on how to prepare their ‘What if’ plan for dealing with a cyber attack from leading cybersecurity expert, Andrea Manning, who is CEO and Co-Founder of Irish company, CyberPie.
Ms Manning will be speaking as part of the free Cyber Security Summit organised by itag (Innovation Technology AtlanTec Gateway ) and Cyber Ireland. The virtual event will be delivered on Thursday October 14 and is open to anyone who registers in advance.
Other parts of the seminar will be focused on cutting edge cyber security and related matters, covering topics such as cryptocurrency, digital forensics, cyberpsychology, zero trust and more.
Among the other high profile speakers participating will be Prof. Lisa Short who is Director and Co-Founder of P&L Digital Edge Limited, Nick Asvos of Palo Alto Networks, Prof. Greg Gogolin from Ferris State University in the US, Blessing Usoro of JP Morgan Chase & Co, Rebecca Springett of TitanHQ, Brian Honan of BH Consulting, Donna O’Shea of Munster Technological University and Derek Laffan of Dublin City University.
Speaking about the importance of cyber security for small and medium businesses, Andrea Manning, CEO and Co-Founder of CyberPie said there is an incorrect assumption among a lot of small businesses in Galway and the rest of Ireland that they are too small to be hacked.
“While it is incidents involving bigger businesses and institutions that rightfully get the full glare of public attention, what a lot of people don’t realise is that every minute of every day there are additional attacks being made on these smaller businesses. We want to provide the small business community in Galway with practical advice and know how to prepare them for handling a cyber attack.
“By humanising cybersecurity and making it accessible to even the smallest of businesses, we can simplify and demystify a key business skill for the 21st century and that’s exactly what we’ll be doing during this free, virtual seminar,” she said.
“Cyber security is becoming increasingly important to many different aspects of business, technology and life,” said Caroline Cawley, CEO of joint seminar organisers, itag.
“We are increasingly seeing the impact of this in our daily lives, with more high profile incidents occurring on Irish shores such as those witnessed with the HSE and NUI Galway in recent times. That is why we believe this seminar is important. Only by allowing those in the cyber, tech and business communities to learn more about the issues at stake and to hear from leading authorities in their fields can we broaden the level of knowledge. That will help further the level of cybersecurity expertise throughout Galway and across all of Ireland, which is the key objective for the Cyber Security Summit 2021,” Ms Cawley said.
“Ireland has become a significant base of international technology and security companies,” said Dr. Eoin Byrne, Cluster Manager, Cyber Ireland. “The top five worldwide security software companies are located here, we have 40 multinational companies with cyber security operations as well as 60 Irish cyber security companies and start-ups operating in this country.
“This free seminar provides a means for bringing some of that expertise together and highlighting key issues within the field of cybersecurity. This event is a platform to build infrastructure resilience and secure cyber capabilities to fight domestic and international threats. These are all matters of significant importance and which we hope to share with the business, cyber and technology community during this interesting and informative seminar,” Dr. Byrne concluded.
The Cyber Security Summit 2021 virtual seminar will run from 11am to 4pm on Thursday October 14, while the presentation on helping small and medium businesses prepare their ‘What If’ plan will take place at 2pm.
Anyone wishing to register for the free event, or looking for more information, can do so by going to https://itag.ie/events/cyber-security-summit/
