Page 17 - CSA Celebrity Speakers | CSA Speaker Bulletin January 2016

P. 17

TECHNOLOGY

What to do in the first 12 hours

of a Cyber Attack?

The CIO felt honoured when he keynotes unique, clear and precise in Prof Marco Gercke is an
received the invitation to speak analysing the status quo, entertaining, entrepreneur, global thinker,
at a closed event. When his illustrative and at the same time full of writer and advisor who
limousine arrived at the conference “actionable” information. focuses on top management
venue where he was supposed to give issues related to
his keynote he had to pass through a Speaking about “actionable” Cybersecurity, such as cyber
security check with a metal detector. information – the question about threats, crisis response,
What he did not realize was that when what decision makers should focus risk management and
his phone went through scanning on during the first day, week and decision making. Over the
it was opened and an interception month of an attack is among the most last 15 years he has worked
device was installed. frequently raised. Mainly because as an expert for various
the challenges for those who need international organisations
After months of successful to go through risk management such as the United Nations
interception the whole case processes and ultimately take and advised governments
was investigated and it turned out decisions fundamentally differ from and government experts
that the “conference” was organized procedures applied with regard to from over 100 countries as
by criminals with the sole aim to usual threats. Usually the first days well as the top management
manipulate the CIO’s phone. are required to collect the basic facts. of Fortune 500 companies.
The story clearly underlines that top Decision making during this time The Cybercrime Research
management moved into the focus of might feel necessary however it is the Institute that he founded
offenders. time period where most fundamental is today one of the best
mistakes are made. Consequently it connected independent think
After the Target CEO lost his job is the period where most guidance is tanks dealing with this topic.
due to a devastating cyber-attack, required. n Here he speaks about the
decision makers started to wonder role of top management in
what role they needed to play in this “Challenges crisis handling.
highly technical environment. And if from a cyber-
there is a role to play – what are the attack differ
industry best practices? fundamentally

Marco has been in the room as advisor from other
when top managers or ministers threats.”
were confronted with an attack
and had to take decisions. His rich
experience of advising some of the
most influential decision makers
in politics and business make his

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