October 2019 Newsletter

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What's Going on in Cyber?

Cyber Ireland organised and participated in a number of events in October including:

  • Presentation at TCI 2019 Global Cluster Conference, Antwerp, 8th – 10th October
  • Irish Information Security Forum October Meeting at Johnson Controls, Cork, 17th October
  • Organisation of first CYBERxHealth Event with Health Innovation Hub Ireland, Cork, 18th of October. (More below)
  • Presentation at ITAG Secure World Event 24th of October, at HPE, Galway
  • Presentation at Enterprise Ireland Cyber Europe Event, Dublin, 30th of October

Welcome to Cyber Ireland's New Members!

Our Community is growing every month. We’d like to welcome our new members in October:

Download the Membership Form HERE

Talent & Skills

Cyber Ireland has launched a Schools Academy Program for Cyber Security Month at the ITAG Secure World Event in HPE, Galway, on the 24th October. The Cyber Ireland Schools Academy, being led by industry, aims to teach Cyber Security Skills to Secondary School students in Ireland and to promote various careers in the cyber security.

The key challenge for the cyber security sector in Ireland, and globally, is access to skilled talent; due to a worldwide shortage of cyber security skills, coupled with the lowest unemployment rate in Ireland since the early 2000’s. This provides a distinct challenge if Ireland is to position itself as a leading cyber security location and to ensure the country is a safe and secure digital economy and society.

Other countries, such as the USA, Australia and the UK, are leading the way in developing the next generation of cyber professionals through promotion careers and courses for students. For example, the UK NCSC’s CyberFirst Initiative is teaching 11-17 year olds cyber security skills; of particular interest is how it is addressing the gender gap in cyber, with 12,000 girls taking part in the CyberFirst Challenge in 2019.

Joanne O’Connor, cybersecurity training manager at HPE and Cyber Ireland Board Member explains: “Cyber Ireland is piloting a Schools Academy geared towards second-level students, with a curriculum that will explore both personal topics, such as personal security and data sharing, and more technical elements such as cryptography and network security, all taught through a range of activities. Partner companies providing career talks on cyber security roles to the students will supplement the teaching element. There is a small cost per student to license the content and this is where industry is taking lead. We have four companies that have signed up to support the Pilot program in schools in Galway, Kerry, Cork & Dublin.

If your organisation is interested in supporting the next generation of cyber security talent in Ireland, contact us for more information and how to participate in the programme.

Research & Development

Cyber Ireland is conducting a cyber security R&D landscape study that will provide the state-of-the-art perspective on current cyber research activity in Ireland.

Can you please take 5-10 minutes to complete the survey at: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/MLWYZV2

The results of this survey will be presented at a research workshop organised later this year, which will bring together experts and researchers from industry and academia to discuss and promote a common understanding of how research can support innovation in the cyber domain.
We are calling on all researchers in industry and academia to complete this short survey by providing a brief description of your research area and its applications to cyber security. By completing this survey:
  • Your research will be promoted to both industry & academia in Ireland
  • Participants in the study will be informed of the survey results and will be invited to attend the aforementioned workshop
  • You will be supporting increased industry-academia cyber security R&D in Ireland
Please do share the survey with other researchers in your organisation so that we gather a comprehensive overview of cyber security R&D in Ireland.


R&D Opportunities:
The CONFIRM Centre for Smart Manufacturing has launched SMART 4.0 – a 24 month training fellowship programme co-funded via EC MCSA COFUND for postdoctoral fellowships. If you would like to work on the topic of cybersecurity for industry 4.0 you can contact Funded Investigators at CONFIRM – Dr Thomas Newe ([email protected]) or Dr Donna O’Shea ([email protected]), 

Are you an SME with an innovative cyber security idea? If so, the European SME Innovation Associate program provides SMEs the opportunity to get an individual grant that covers the costs of the first year of employment to employ a highly-skilled experienced researcher (PhD level). Call launch 3rd September 2019 and closing date 15th January 2020. More information is available at – http://ec.europa.eu/research/participants/portal/desktop/en/opportunities/h2020/topics/innosup-02-2019-2020.html

CYBERxHealth

First CYBERxHealth event organised with the Health Innovation Hub Ireland.

David Mari, eHealth Innovation Hub Manager for Eurecat in Catalonia, presented the EU Konfido Project holistic approach to address the challenge of secure cross-border exchange of eHealth data. The event brought together cyber security and eHealth companies, as well as the HSE. 
We are now exploring the appetitie for a cross-sectoral CYBERxHealth Working Group with companies and oragnisations in the Healthcare & cyber security space. If you are interested in participating in the CYBERxHealth Working Group send us an email.
 

Looking to be a Force Multiplier? 
Join H-ISAC’s growing European Community!

The Health Information Sharing and Analysis Center (H-ISAC), is a global, non-profit, member-driven organization offering healthcare stakeholders a trusted community and forum for coordinating, collaborating and sharing vital physical and cyber threat intelligence and best practices with each other.

Joining H-ISAC is one of the best ways health care and public health firms can actively participate to protect the industry and its vital role in critical infrastructure. Health-ISAC members share information on what they are seeing on a real-time basis every day and can take that shared intelligence and use it in their own environments to create situational awareness, inform risk-based decision-making and mitigate against threats.  Applying the shared information can effectively decrease the threat surface from cyber attackers across our members’ environment. Each new member becomes a force multiplier by proactively sharing cyber and physical threat intelligence and thus increasing the resilience of the healthcare sector and public health critical infrastructure.  In addition, members share best practices, strategies and other valuable information with each other.  

For more information, contact H-ISAC at [email protected] and help expand our community across Europe.

Why Ireland for Cyber Security?

What's Going On in Cyber - November:

Conferences


Meet-ups


If you are involved in any cyber security groups/meet-ups or run events and think it should be included in the brochure please let us know. Our aim is to better promote and support the various cyber security activities on-going around the country.