Agenda

What does the future of Cyber Threats for the UK look like, how is it likely to affect the way we live our lives and how does the panel think we should approach this new paradigm?

As an investigative journalist, Geoff White has covered technology for BBC News, Channel 4 News, Audible, Forbes online and many others. Geoff created the Data Baby project, a unique experiment which used a fictional online identity to expose how our personal data is being used - and abused - online. As the technology correspondent for Channel 4 News, one of the UK’s leading daily news programmes, Geoff won multiple awards for his work on the Snowden leaks, the hacking of Britain’s largest ISP TalkTalk and his exposés of fraud in the internet dating industry. He also recently completed a 10-part series delving into the shadow dark web economy that feeds on stolen personal data, hacked computers and corporate incompetence. 'Crime Dot Com: From Viruses to Vote Rigging, How Hacking Went Global', was Geoff's first book, and was described as a ''fascinating, often gripping read''. His second book, the Lazarus Heist was ranked no. 1 in the UK. It sprang from the hit 10-part BBC podcast series of the same name, which Geoff co-hosted and which immediately ranked number one in the UK Apple chart and within the top 7 in the US. He has written and presented two major podcast series for Audible. Artificial Intelligence: Friend or Foe? reveals the origins of AI, and shows how the technology is seeping into everyday life. The Dark Web exposes the shadow internet created by the US military and now home to hackers, crooks and freedom fighters.

Professor Paul Cornish began his career in the British Army before joining the Foreign and Commonwealth Office as an arms control and disarmament analyst. He has held several professorial-level appointments including Chatham House, RAND Europe and the Universities of Cambridge, Bath and Exeter. He became a member of the UK Chief of Defence Staff’s Strategic Advisory Panel in 2009, was a founding co-director of the Global Cyber Security Capacity Centre at the University of Oxford in 2013 and in 2017 was Professorial Fellow in Cyber Security at the Australian National University. In 2019 he was appointed Visiting Professor at LSE IDEAS, the foreign affairs think-tank at the London School of Economics. He is editor of The Oxford Handbook of Cyber Security, published in 2021, and author of A Very Short Introduction to Cyber Security, to be published in 2024.

Siraj Ahmed Shaikh is a Professor in Systems Security at Swansea University (UK). His research interests lie at the intersection of cybersecurity, systems engineering and computer science addressing cyber-physical systems security for automotive and transport systems. He is also Co-Founder and Chief Scientist at CyberOwl, which is dedicated to risk analytics and security monitoring for the maritime sector. Previously, he has also held Royal Academy of Engineering’s Industry Fellowship hosted at HORIBA MIRA (2015-2016). Siraj has been involved in research, development and evaluation of large-scale distributed secure systems for over twenty-two years. His doctoral and post-doctoral research involved design and verification of security and safety-critical systems. He has recently co-authored a book on “Formal Methods for Software Engineering Languages, Methods, Application Domains” published by Springer (2022).

Rob Black is Director of the UK Cyber 9/12 Strategy Challenge a university student competition focused on building the next generation of cyber security leaders competent in strategy, policy and the technical aspects of cyber security. He is also a Lecturer in Information Activities at Cranfield University, at the UK Defence Academy. He leads classified modules on the Ministry of Defence’s Cyberspace Operations MSc and his interests are focused on the nexus of cyber, intelligence, information operations and warfighting, the legality of cyber operations and the role of influence and deception in cyber. He is the former Deputy Director of the UK’s National Cyber Deception Laboratory which explored the potential cyber deception has to offer for cyber defence. Previously, he worked for the MoD developing cyber capabilities and supported the delivery of cyber operations across UK HMG.

Rob is also an Associate Programme Director at Wilton Park, an agency of the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, where he helps enable policy shaping dialogue on issues at the heart of the UK government’s interests. His current programme focuses on defence and national security, cyber and intelligence.

More presentations from Geoff White:
The Biggest Hack Ever? Featuring Jimmy Fallon, Kim Jong Un and a Bunch of Salamanders

More presentations from Professor Siraj Shaikh:
Economics of CNI Security