Venue
Speaker:
Dr. Mathew Nicho is an Associate Professor at the Research and Innovation Centre at Rabdan Academy, UAE, where he teaches and conducts research in the cybersecurity domain for UAE defense, police, and related ministry employees. Prior to this, he served as an Associate Professor at Zayed University Dubai and as a lecturer in cybersecurity and IT governance at the School of Computing at Robert Gordon University, Scotland. He obtained his Masters and PhD from Auckland University of Technology, Auckland, New Zealand. His teaching and research focus on the socio-technical aspects of cyber-attacks, user vulnerabilities in advanced persistent threats, and the application of machine learning and AI in crime detection and warfare. His research outputs have been published in journals such as Communications of the Association of Information Systems, Information and Computer Security, Sustainability, and presented at conferences including the Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, IFIP International Conference on Networking, and HCI International. Currently, he is engaged in projects with the UAE government related to cyber-attacks on critical infrastructures and have given invited ttalks to the industry in UAE and Scotland (UK).
Abstract:
The seminar's topic is based on a 12-month study conducted in collaboration with the Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM), the regulatory body of the UAE Central Bank, along with UQ Cyber and the Singapore Institute of Technology, during the period of 2023-24. The study involved interviews with Chief Information Officers (CIOs), Chief Information Security Officers (CISOs), and IT Security Directors from both regional and multinational financial institutions in the area. Through these interviews, several strategic research directions were identified for organizations to pursue in the information security domain, addressing existing research gaps and considering recent trends in attacks on national critical infrastructures. The focus of the talk will lean more towards posing research questions rather than providing answers. The seminar will discuss the research directions in (1) the dynamics of information supply chain in the financial sector, (2) reinforcing the human firewall and (3) the death of the IT department (security centric). Possible solutions and ideas suggested by the industry will be discussed. (While the focus of the discussion is based on the one-year study, the talk will include insights gained from direct interactions with IT industry leaders in the UAE and UK since 2010).