EY collaborates with SLID to host webcast: ‘Responding to COVID-19 Flattening the Cyber risk curve’

EY collaborates with Sri Lanka Institute of Directors (SLID), very well known for pioneering Corporate Governance amongst the corporates in Sri Lanka, to host webcast on ‘Responding to COVID-19 flattening the Cyber risk curve’, an interactive virtual session where the elite panel of speakers are to share their insights as to how attackers are capitalising on the COVID-19 pandemic to spread malware to unsuspecting victims and to stress upon the role of Board to safeguard business assets as we plunge into teleworking to stay resilient now, next and beyond.

EY India Cyber-security Partner Kartik Shinde

Sri Lanka CERT CEO Lal Dias

LOLC Finance Director/CEO and LOLC Holdings Director Conrad Dias

Moderator and EY Sri Lanka IT Advisory and Cyber-security Senior Director Shanaka De Silva

Across the world, attackers are capitalising on the COVID-19 pandemic to spread malware to unsuspecting victims, and a real uptick in phishing and targeted spear-phishing campaigns can already be seen. 

Hackers are essentially using COVID-19 as click-bait to gain access to personal information. On the flipside, strict regulations, curfews and lockdowns were imposed by the local authorities enforcing strict work from home advises. The question remains whether our organisations were prepared enough to cohesively respond to such crisis?

“At a period where information assets of corporates are found to be vulnerable than ever before in terms of Confidentiality, Integrity and Availability perspectives, for those enterprises who had paid less concern to Information Security/Cyber-security over business agenda are at unforeseen risks today. 

“Most of our organisations in Sri Lanka are not adequately protected to offer a secure environment for their employees to work from home. It is important that organisations incorporate cyber resilient planning into the business continuity planning as an essential requirement for enterprise resilience,” said Ernst & Young Sri Lanka, Maldives Partner and Advisory Leader Arjuna Herath. 

“As we move together, in today’s context, into a totally unknown and untested new territory to work, using modern technology with integrity and transparency, there are, of course, another set of elements trying to block and prevent such progress and take advantage specially from the smaller and weaker organisations, in simple terms ‘play the role of thieves or saboteurs’. This webcast is thus organised to enlighten our participants of the dangers envisaged and steps that could be taken to prevent such unwarranted episodes,” Institute of Directors Chairman A.R. Rasiah added. The webcast is scheduled to be held tomorrow at 10.30 a.m. with the following speaker panellists. EY India Cyber-security Partner Kartik Shinde, Sri Lanka CERT CEO Lal Dias and LOLC Finance PLC Director/CEO and LOLC Holdings PLC Director Conrad Dias. The session will be moderated by EY Sri Lanka IT Advisory and Cyber-security Senior Director Shanaka De Silva. 

Kartik, in preparation for the webcast, commented: “Threat actors intend on making the most financial gain out of COVID-19. Today we live in an era of emerging technologies and truth be it, every new technology brings with it new risks and uncertainties. To pull through these difficult times C-suites must understand how to ensure safety of organisation intellect properties, financials and systems that would support enterprise resilience and to remain competitive whilst supporting financial sustainability of organisations as Sri Lanka looms in to the Next and Beyond.”  

Kartik is Partner with EY and heads the Cyber Security Practice for Financial Services across Africa, India and Middle East region. He has been primarily involved in analysing risks to businesses arising from people, process, technology failures and developing strategies for secure information ecosystem. 

He has successfully led investigations for some of the largest cyber-attacks in the country and has advised clients locally and globally on the recent SWIFT and other payment related security incidents faced by global banks. His international experience spans across the EMEA and Asia Pacific regions working on critical cyber-security assignments including Strategy and Framework development, Real-time Attack simulations and War Games for the boardroom and Threat intelligence and Analytics. 

Lal Dias is to present insights on significant types of incidents encountered during the lockdown in locally and security implications deriving from WFH. He will add to discussion implementations of the National Cyber Security Strategy over the five-year period (2019-2023) and whether our law enforcement agencies possess the capacity to address cyber-crimes. 

Dias is the founding CEO of Sri Lanka CERT and was able to use his vast international exposure to forge relationships with other National CERT’s and recognised global bodies in the Cyber Security space. As an active member of Forum for Incident Response and Security Teams (FIRST) and Asia Pacific CERT (APCERT), he is a trusted contributor to the Asia Pacific and global Cyber security community. 

With over 27 years of experience and possesses domain expertise in sectors such as Trading, Banking and Finance, Assets Management and Manufacturing, Conrad will add flavour to the discussion by sharing perspectives relating to the developing new norms for the financial industry. Currently he also serves as a Board member LOLC Overseas Operations and is a Director of Digital Mobility Ltd popular knows as Pick Me, and several other organisations in Sri Lanka. 

Registrations for the webcast can be secured via http://bit.ly/EYSL_Cyber.