The University of New Brunswick is partnering with an Israeli cybersecurity initiative to further the work they’re doing to combat online terrorism.
CyberSpark, called Israeli’s cyber innovation arena, will collaborate with the Canadian Institute of Cybersecurity in an effort to increase innovation and development in cyber research.
READ MORE: University of New Brunswick creates cybersecurity ‘hub’ with new institute
“CyberSpark has been doing this for awhile and we hope that through these interactions we can send our students or researchers to them or learn from them how to do different types of training,” explained Dr. Ali Ghorbani, UNB’s dean of computer science and the Institute’s director.
“There is a good match in DNA between UNB and CyberSpark,” said CyberSpark’s CEO Roni Zehavi in a press release after signing the MOU. “In both places, there is a working ecosystem combining a top-notch university with highly advanced research and industry collaboration.”
“Through this MOU we can learn from them,” Ghorbani said.
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Although a recent ransomware scare was felt more strongly overseas Canadian experts are adamant that getting ahead of cyber terrorists needs to be a top priority.
“Organizations consistently underestimate cyber risk and decide ‘well because we can’t quite understand it we’re just going to accept it,'” said David Shipley, CEO of Beauceron Security, a company which specializes in helping equip businesses with the tools they need to remain protected online. “Which puts them in these terrible situations.”
Both Ghorbani and Shipley agree that while research is pivotal to fighting cyber crime, one of the best tools against hackers is quite simple, keep your devices updated.
“Most people don’t know it’s on them to keep all the updates on,” Shipley explained. “For example, about a month ago Apple had 19 critical vulnerabilities in IOS and if you didn’t update to 10.3 just visiting a website could get your phone owned as in someone could take control of it.”
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