Cyber Defense for All: A Core Emphasis at the Cybersecurity Conference

“Employees, their families, business partners, and subcontractors constitute the hackers’ superweapons. They no longer target only the employees or management; everyone in the company’s surroundings is now a target. We all must contribute to protecting our IT infrastructure,” said Yegor Aushev in his address.

This year’s NCSC conference focused on incident management from a comprehensive perspective and included presentations covering everything from preparations and identification to handling and lessons learned.

Yegor Aushev, Cybersecurity Advisor to Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council and advisor to Ukraine’s Ministry of Digital Transformation, participated remotely from Kyiv, Ukraine. He spoke about the importance of all individuals in an organization and in a society being able to defend themselves and that the new generation of hackers lacks morals.

“They target children, the elderly, anyone vulnerable. So everyone must know the basics of how to defend themselves online.”

Also present on the stage in Stockholm was the co-founder of Cyber Unit Technologies, Ole Dubnov.

“We must democratize cybersecurity. A company will never be able to protect itself and its employees with software alone. It is up to each individual to protect the company.”

This year’s edition of the conference focused on the ability to resist and manage cyber attacks. How well an organization can withstand attacks depends on overall strategic decisions and individual skill and competence. The goal of the NCSC conference in 2023 was to gather different perspectives on incident management within one program.

“We must create the right conditions for continuous IT security work. Just appointing a new role as an IT security manager is not enough. Cybersecurity is something that must permeate the entire operation. It’s about conducting risk analyses, putting protective structures in place, and, not least, budgeting for it. Preventive efforts are ultimately cheaper than hoping nothing will happen,” said Thérèse Naess in her address.

The Defense Radio Establishment, the Security Police, and the National Defense College all contributed to the conference, and even the Minister for Civil Defense, Carl-Oskar Bohlin, spoke. In his address, he discussed how we can learn from the Russian attacks on Ukraine.

Yegor Aushev’s and Ole Dubnov’s addresses received a lot of attention.

“We have developed a strategy for secure digital transformation that spans national, corporate, and individual levels. The strategy is based on rapidly improving a company’s overall cybersecurity to prevent incidents and manage intrusions. With a rapidly evolving threat landscape and extensive attack surfaces, it is crucial to immediately enhance employees’ cybersecurity competence,” said Yegor Aushev.