On Monday 24 October, the atmosphere at the Wärtsilä’s Helsinki Campus got spicy.
Our first joint Cyber Talks event brought together Dräger, KONE, Outokumpu, Sandvik, Stora Enso, Valmet and Wärtsilä. We had a sizzling executive fireside chat and a panel of cyber leaders discussing ‘What’s hot in cyber?’ in a friendly chili pepper eating contest.
The aim was to shine a light on the opportunities and challenges of cyber security for individuals, societies and businesses.
The event gathered executives, cyber leaders, and a crowd of more than 2.000 cyber curious individuals from the participating companies. Rapid digitisation makes cyber security a hot topic. So, what did we learn together?
We need cross-industry and cross-border collaboration to manage cyber security. No single organisation can build cyber-resilient ecosystems alone, given the current dynamic threat environment, evolving regulatory frameworks, and shifting geopolitical landscapes.
Cyber Security is not only a tech topic but a business topic and very much on the agenda in the boardrooms. Cyber is an integral part of a company’s strategic and operational activities, from innovation and product development to sustainability.
Maciej Kranz, Executive Vice President and Chief Technological Officer at KONE sees that Cyber security can enable and accelerate digital transformation.
“At KONE cyber security is integrated into everything we do much like quality or safety. Our cyber teams teach the functions on how to integrate cyber from the very beginning. This makes cyber an enabler and reduces cost and the time to market”, he told.
Wärtsilä’s Atte Palomäki, Executive Vice President, Communications, Branding & Marketing took part in the executive fireside chat. The business leaders addressed how cyber risks and opportunities impact their everyday decisions.
According to the World Economic Forum, cybersecurity failure is one of the top medium-term risks (14.6%). Scams, malware, malicious domains and fake news are the most common cyber threats.
The exponential growth of cyber-attacks means that companies need to be always ready.
In case of a cyber incident, we face a foggy landscape that leaves no room for speculation. It is essential to leverage the expertise of your cyber unit and other experts. Bring the right people together to assess the business impact, agree on priority actions, and define the key messages. And all this must be calibrated continuously.
Some of the hottest concepts in the cyber world today are data self-sovereignty, and end-to-end trust in products and services. The increased sophistication of cyber-attacks was also mentioned.
Mark Milford, Vice President Cyber Security at Wärtsilä teamed up with the other cyber leaders for a chili pepper eating contest. He proved that a seasoned cyber lead can handle the afterburn while eloquently sharing his insights into emerging cyber trends. "With huge amounts of data stored in cloud platforms, nation states are looking to protect their critical infrastructure as well as theirs citizens' data from advanced persistent threat actors," Mark shared.
He also reminded us about the importance of cyber security in our personal lives. "We should all get the basic cybersecure behaviours right, for our home and personal digital interactions. It is in our best interest to do so since we all have social lives."
Let's not bite off more than we can chew. As Stora Enso's Chief Information Security Officer Patrick Anderson so cleverly put it.
Cyber security is like chili; it will only get worse before it gets better.
Cyber security is part of our everyday business at Wärtsilä. We protect our assets, people, processes, systems, networks, devices, and products to reduce business risk for Wärtsilä and our customers. For us, the annual October Cyber Security Awareness Month is about raising cyber awareness together internally and externally.
The cross-company Cyber Talks event was a great way to explore cyber security's current and future landscape together. We grow stronger when we share and collaborate with colleagues, companies, and industries.
