(Finance) – Raising awareness of entrepreneurs and public administrators on the risks of cybercrime e on harmful consequences it has on business: with this objective they met numerous experts who participated in ConfSecthe most awaited annual event on the Cyber Security of Southern Italy. Reached his eighth edition, the event – conceived and organized by Evolumia, a consultancy company active in southern Italy on cyber security – took place in Bari.
To open the day, one Panel discussionwith a language business orientedintended for those who have responsibility for the company, in which the impacts of the Cybercrime on the real economy, what a cyber attack entails in terms of economic losses, image and trust, with a focus on the best organization to deal with cyber threats and on the new obligations and strategies to be adopted to obtain a good level of protection and incident response capabilities.
The panel of experts, moderated by Lino Fornaro, scientific manager of ConfSec and Security Manager of Evolumia, saw the participation of the General Precious, Teacher of geopolitics and space security, GDF trainer for cybersecurity and cyber defense strategies, President of the Eurispes Observatory on security; Fulvio MancoDirector of the Puglia Postal and Telecommunications Police Department; Annita Larissa Sciacovelli, Professor of international law UNIBA, ENISA Advisory Board; Giovanni Ruberto, Principal Security Transformation Architect, Symantec; Paolo Passeri, Cyber Intelligence Principal, Domenico Reviglio, President of Services Values Enterprise.
To meet the needs of a more technical audience, in the afternoon ConfSec was transformed into a space called “TechnologyLAB” in which the technologies made available by cyber security vendors were explored in depth, through demos and a comparison between the experts and the public. In this context, two speeches were included with a focus on Cloud security and code security, by two cyber security experts: Matteo Meucci and Paolo Passeri. Also present at the event Piero Iezzi And Umberto Cassano.
Among the topics addressed, it emerged that the second quarter of 2023 saw the threat of ransomware ccontinue to wreak havoc on organizations around the world. According to recent data, 43 different ransomware groups have been identified operating, with the United States found to be the most affected region and a total of 89 countries experiencing attacks. Among the most active groups, Lockbit stands out, causing considerable damage to many organizations, reaching a total of 245 attacks.
Alarming to note that alsoand Italy ranks among the top countries in terms of number of companies affected, cwith a total of 35. Of these, small and medium-sized businesses with between 1 and 100 employees make up the majority of victims of ransomware attacks, accounting for 80% of the total companies affected. This indicates that cybercriminals have primarily targeted smaller businesses, which are considered more vulnerable to this type of threat due to limited resources and less developed security measures. In fact, in the current cybersecurity landscape in Italy, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) continue to suffer ransomware attacks on a daily basis.
For Lino Fornaro, scientific manager of ConfSec and Security Manager of Evolumia: “ConfSec was created to ensure that local companies and professionals have a moment of meeting to acquire knowledge, to understand the importance of information security for the protection of business. We must not look at security as a cost but as an investment, because when a company falls into an attack and does not have a resilient system, the consequences can be fatal, it could have a negative reputational impact or lose customers or even close down” .
According to General Pasquale Preziosa, Teacher of geopolitics and space security, GDF trainer for cybersecurity and cyber defense strategies, President of the Eurispes Observatory on security: “Cyber warfare is part of the real world. Cyber attacks precede and follow what is then the military campaign that develops. We saw it with the war in Ukraine and we are seeing it now in Gaza. In this sense, the entrusting of certain structures of attention solely to technology were detrimental because the human part, which could in some way alert us to what was happening, was missing. Therefore cybernetic technology must always be combined with human intelligence.”
“When a company suffers an attack and the resulting loss of data, it can be considered a cataclysm. The very existence of the company is called into question because it suffers damage not only from an economic point of view but also from an image point of view. Therefore, investing in security is no longer an option but is absolutely necessary for a serious company; an investment to be carried out with foresight and an architectural vision, with clear business ideas. Therefore, the role of those who offer security services is to simplify operators’ lives as much as possible by offering easy and immediate solutions”, he underlined Giovanni RubertoPrincipal Security Transformation Architect, Symantec.