Dr Trishana Ramluckan, Honorary Research Fellow in the School of Law, co-presented a keynote address with Dr Brett van Niekerk (Durban University of Technology) and Mrs Noëlle van der Waag-Cowling (Stellenbosch University) at the 21st European Conference on Cyber Warfare and Security which was a hybrid conference hosted by the University of Chester, UK.
Their keynote was titled: Multidisciplinarity and Multistakeholderism for Cyber Resilience of Emerging Economies: Lessons from Cyber Challenges and was based on the lessons learned from their involvement with local and international cybersecurity competitions, including winning an international cybersecurity competition in 2021 and judging in other competitions.
Internationally, there is increasing focus on multistakeholder engagement to counter increasing cybercrime and nation-states perpetrating or backing major cyber-attacks. Responses to major cyber-incidents need to have multidisciplinary components including law, crisis management, political as well as socio-economic considerations. Examples include managing the social implications of the Transnet cyber-incident in 2021 which had a negative impact on farmers and exports.
The importance of cybersecurity competitions and exercises for skills development through experiential learning, as well as preparedness for cybersecurity incident responders to be able to engage and work effectively with others from different disciplines were key take-aways that were discussed. Often misunderstandings, shortcomings, or unexpected complexities in an incident response plan can be identified during exercises, which provides an opportunity to improve before an actual crisis occurs.
Words: NdabaOnline
Photograph: Supplied
