UNB’s annual CIC conference explores global challenges in cybersecurity
Author: UNB Newsroom
Posted on Oct 11, 2022
Category: UNB Fredericton
The Canadian Institute for Cybersecurity (CIC) at the University of New Brunswick (UNB) hosted its first hybrid version of the annual privacy, security and trust conference last month after a two-year hiatus due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The four-day event was divided into a three-part conference featuring an in-person cybersecurity industry summit, a virtual academic conference and hybrid workshop sessions.
The cybersecurity industry summit brought together experts from academia, government and industry to discuss and share advances in cybersecurity research. It featured 15 keynote speakers, a panel discussion and capstone project demonstrations by students in UNB’s CIC Master of Applied Cybersecurity (MACSec) program.
Panel discussions and speeches explored current challenges and solutions by practitioners, scholars and policymakers.
“The focus this year was on talent development and the talent gap,” said Awele Oguejiofor, business developer at CIC. “This is a global challenge. Cybersecurity positions are unfilled simply because there aren’t enough people with the necessary skills to take them on.”
The field of cybersecurity is constantly evolving, with new threats and attacks emerging with varying degrees of sophistication in various areas, such as ransomware, data breaches and critical infrastructure.
“There is a need for constant training and retraining of professionals to address these attacks,” added Oguejiofor. “No single organization can tackle cyber threats alone. Close collaboration between stakeholders is required to identify and pre-empt new cyber threats and attacks.”
To train students and grow the cybersecurity talent pipeline, UNB’s Master of Applied Cybersecurity (MACSec) offers the Research-Intensive Cyber Knowledge Studies (RICKS).
The RICKS program enables students to focus on important fundamentals and foundations of cyber security, including privacy, information assurance and network security. It is an experiential addendum to the MACSec academic program offered jointly by the faculty of computer science and the Canadian Institute for Cybersecurity (CIC) located on the UNB Fredericton campus.
For more information about this program, contact cic@unb.ca or fcs@unb.ca.
Media contact: Kathleen McLaughlin