OSP CYBER ACADEMY

Join Forces With Wood And Rgu To Change Cyber Behaviour

the students that gain placement, feed back their experiences into their chosen faculties, which enables RGU to shape and develop their courses. The more input that RGU can have from industry the better. There are benefits on both sides — very much a reciprocal relationship — working with industry enables RGU students to be better equipped when graduates are looking for employment. Preparing the cyber students is a perfect example of that collaboration with OSP Cyber Academy and Wood, one that RGU is very grateful for. ” said Chris McDermott, a lecturer of Computing Science and Cyber Security with a passion for human factors education.

The emphasis of this initiative is to ensure that all new cyber students have an awareness of cyber threats and risks as they embark on their chosen studies. The UK government has worked tirelessly to establish a standard academic knowledge path to ensure that all UK cyber students are receiving the same level of education. The Cyber Body of Knowledge (CyBOK) sets out the academic guidance that ensures all cyber students receive a structured knowledge path.

OSP Cyber Academy is an approved training provider with National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) certified training, which reinforces the learning outcomes of their training to a UK national standard.

“ Behind every single cyber attack there is a beating heart. The bad actor is human. The victim is human. So to combat the threat, we need to understand the human risks, good cyber security is as much a people function as it is a technical function. “ said Malcolm Norman, CISO at Wood.

Cyber risks are real in the business community. The 2022 Global Risks Report which was released by the World Economic Forum found that 95% of cybersecurity issues are attributed to human error.

Without awareness or education on cybersecurity, businesses are susceptible to attack as those unaware of cyber risks are the most likely to be targeted and exploited. The same cyber risks and vulnerabilities exist for academia, especially when students are first embarking on their studies with no initial level of cyber awareness.

The final thoughts on the journey of this tremendous collaboration were echoed by former RGU Marketing student, Blair Wallace. Blair joined OSP Cyber Academy on a placement 4 years ago and is now shaping his own career path within the business community: have worked together with cyber student placements.

“ With 5.6 million companies in UK at risk of cyber attack, there is a huge shortage of capability to meet the cyber demands required to ensure that our businesses and people are safe when online. With less than 1 in 9 business in the UK providing cyber awareness training for their staff, there is a huge shortfall in cyber education. There is a large chunk of the business community that is not raising awareness. It’s so important that every business leader should be looking to raise cyber awareness amongst their staff. For me, cyber security awareness training is essential for anyone going into the business world and for their own online safety. This is where OSP Cyber Academy can provide that critical real-life training, awareness, and education needed. ” These were just some of the thoughts of former Police Chief Inspector and now Chief Operating Officer at OSP Cyber Academy, Irene Coyle.

“ Marketing and management was my chosen degree course which is very much people orientated. People outside of cyber security would think that cyber is all about technology, numbers on a screen and servers, and to a degree that is true however cyber is very much a human factor. People just don’t realise until they are in the cyber industry, not until they have experienced a cyber attack or a data breach, which happens a lot more than you would think. It’s then that they begin to understand just how much relates to the human factor. It’s just as important to educate your workforce as it is to focus on your technology and hardware, that is something that has become so apparent to me working with so many of the clients here at OSP Cyber Academy. ” Blair is now a vital member of the OSP team, providing support as the business and digital marketing lead.

Collaborations like this do not have all the answers; unfortunately, there is NO silver bullet to solve all of the challenges that the cyber security industry faces. One thing that is critical is education and awareness, which every company should provide for its workforce to ensure that they have the opportunity to identify a risk before it escalates into something catastrophic.

This is not the first collaboration between Wood and RGU, and the wider business community, as for a number of years they

“The Wood Business Information Security Team learn as much from the students that join the cyber team on placement as the students do from Wood. We get enormous benefit from the curiosity of the students who join Wood with an academic stimulus and learning. In return, Wood layer on to that practical experience, which is vital context for the students’ future development. It’s a win-win situation for us all.” said Malcolm Norman..

The key message is that if we all work together to educate and raise awareness, we can make genuine change as we endeavour towards our collective goal of a positive cyberculture.

“Within our garden close I saw thee—I was guide for both—a little child, along with my mother, plucking dewy apples. My eleventh year finished, the next had just greeted me; from the ground I could now reach the frail boughs. As I saw, how I was lost! How a fatal frenzy swept me away!” meaningful progress in diversifying the workforce will happen. Inclusion is the foundation, and from it, diversity will expand. That’s our focus and we’re honored to have such a thriving global community of over 6.3k members, 54 professional affiliates and 214 student chapters keeping the momentum and advancement opportunities for women in cybersecurity going strong.” WiCyS has now grown to have representation in over 70 countries in under a decade.

Many of us have come to the field of cybersecurity from diverse educational backgrounds and professional experiences. As a former classics major in college, I loved reading original texts in Latin, Classical and Koine Greek, and then translating them into English, French and German. The above lines are long held to be Voltaire’s favorite lines in Latin: “from the ground I could now reach the frail boughs”—this line, with its stunning syllables of interposition, embodies the promise of moving from callow childhood into adolescence, the alacrity of self-empowerment.

Lynn Dohm is the Executive Director of WiCyS, with more than 25 years of organizational and leadership experience. Dohm has successfully collaborated with businesses, nonprofits and NSF-funded grants and helped produce outcomes that aligned with their cybersecurity business goals.

As the Arab International Cybersecurity Summit begins on December 6th, 2022, we take the time to honor the success, sustained contributions, and advancement of women in the Middle East in cybersecurity, notably through Women in Cybersecurity Middle East (WiCSME) organization. The WiCSME launched in 2018 through the vision and effort of founding members Abeer Khedr, CISO of the National Bank of Egypt, and Dr. Reem Faraj Al-Shammari, CISO of the Kuwait Oil Company, starting as a WhatsApp group with 20 members. The organization grew 1400% in the first year of its inception, and now has supporting members in the UAE, Egypt, Kuwait, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Qatar, the United Kingdom, India, New Zealand and Ukraine. The WiCSME trajectory of growth remains strong into 2023, and its continued collaboration with global nonprofits, including Women in Cybersecurity (WiCyS), evidences a substantial trajectory toward the growth of women in the cybersecurity arena in all roles.

In a recent conversation with Lynn Dohm, Executive Director of WiCys, Dohm noted “at WiCyS, we continually start the conversation to recruit, retain and advance women in cybersecurity with the power of inclusion. Cultivating a culture of inclusion is where

The theme of cybersecurity culture, specifically with women as anchors for its genesis and collaboration, continues through the work of Christiane Wuillamie, OBE: “Cybersecurity needs women more than ever. Women are natural collaborators, which makes their contribution(s) to building culture in cybersecurity an essential part of the cyber ecosystem.”

Ecosytem. Culture. Cybersecurity continues to foster opportunities to collaborate, allowing us to go beyond conventional thinking and define what will be next. As women both entering and thriving in the cybersecurity arena, it is our responsibility to both carefully curate and support this curation of culture.

As we look out from the Exhibition World Bahrain Center, we see skyscrapers that rise as sablethroated music and harmonize with the desert sky. We find and embrace our collective industry knowledge and strength, which stretches across many continents-it is a roborant force that cannot be suppressed.

I invite you to connect, and to embrace building this cybersecurity ecosystem as our responsibility. Looking back at Vergil’s guidance--all of its branches, across all continents, will indeed, be tangible.

Do not be afraid to stretch and aim as high as you can. We’ll find our wings on the way down, together.

Christiane Wuillamie, OBE, is an expert in shaping technology, security, business systems and cultural change to help companies across the globe solve complex business challenges. Wuillamie has won many awards, notably an OBE for her services to business and tireless support of SMEs. Recently Wuillamie has participated in a book on Responsible Leadership sponsored by the United Nations, which will be released on November 30th, 2022 (launched in Geneva on December 16th and in London on January 20th).

Margaret Morton is a solution-oriented information security senior leader who combines extensive industry knowledge with solid program and change management skills to drive global enterprise-wide security and governance strategies. She served on the Founding Board of WiCyS from its funding stage and has delivered impactful security initiatives for AmLaw 25 law firms, two Federal agencies, and leading investment banks. Morton is currently contracted to the Office of the CISO at a French international banking group, also the largest cooperative financial institution in the world. In her spare time she is thrilled to support “FLYGIRLS” a forthcoming, dramatic television limited series that will feature true stories and previously unseen footage of the legendary Women Airforce Service Pilots of World War II (of which her Aunt was a service member).