CICRA CEO speaks on cyber security at NHRDC public sector forum

CICRA Group Director/CEO Boshan Dayaratne conducted a half-a-day session on cyber security for the public-sector key employees during a forum organised by National Human Resource Development Council (NHRDC) recently in Colombo.

CICRA Group Director/CEO Boshan Dayaratne

Titled ‘How to protect from IT Insecurity: Towards future ready work force’, Dayaratne spoke on the need for proactively facing cyber security concerns than merely reacting to various security breaches and incidences.

Dayaratne also demonstrated to the audience various hacking tactics that are commonly used around the world.

Highlighting the present and future cyber security hazards that can threaten Government institutes in Sri Lanka, Dayaratne demonstrated preventive steps that could be taken against such cyber-attacks.

“The weakest link in the cyber security domain is the human being. Therefore, it is very important to improve the knowledge and skills level of every employee who have been given a computer and a network cable,” he said.

“When adopting technology for government agencies, it is always important to consider people, process and technology, instead of blindly going behind technology without identifying the capacity of human resources and relevant processes,” he said. The workshop covered top cyber security attack vectors in 2017, phishing scams, mobile security and social engineering attacks such as call, text and email spoofing. One of the highlighting factor to the audience was the Wi-Fi security, and do’s and don’ts when using public Wi-Fi.  Dayaratne also thanked NHRDC Chairman Dinesh Weerakkody for taking the initiative to organise the workshop.

Nearly 140 higher and middle level managers from over 65 ministries, semi-Government institutes and departments were among the participants. Dayaratne is a strong advocate in promoting cyber security both locally and internationally.  On the invitation of US Pacific Command, he has represented Sri Lanka and delivered lectures for top military personal in the Pacific Region during last five consecutive years at the Multinational Communication Interoperability Program (MCIP) held in Singapore, Thailand, Philippines, Australia and Silican Valley, USA.

He represents CICRA – Sri Lanka’s pioneering cyber security training and consultancy organisation (www.cicra.lk).

Pic by Lasantha Kumara