Small and medium sized businesses in Mayo 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.
Andrea 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.
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/
