Fostering a community-based approach towards SME cybersecurity

Steven Furnell

Abstract

Ensuring cyber security often poses particular challenges for Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs), with constraints in terms of time, skills and resources leading to difficulties in understanding the issues and following good practice. The Cyber Security Communities of Support (CyCOS) project has been further investigating the challenges, with data collected from both SMEs and support providers. The project aims to trial a new community-based approach to support, offering a further channel through which to socialise and demystify cyber security for the SME audience, based upon collaboration between organisations in the same region, sector or supply chain. In this session, Prof. Steven Furnell will discuss the issue of cyber security for SMEs, drawing upon key findings from the work to date from both the SME and provider perspectives. He will also outline the plans for the proposed Communities of Support approach.

Date
Jan 24, 2025 2:00 PM — 3:00 PM

Prof. Steven Furnell is Professor of Cyber Security in the School of Computer Science at the University of Nottingham. His research interests include security management and culture, usability of security and privacy, and technologies for user authentication and intrusion detection. He has authored over 400 papers in refereed international journals and conference proceedings, as well as various books, book chapters, and industry reports. Steve is the UK representative to Technical Committee 11 (security and privacy) within the International Federation for Information Processing, and a board member of the Chartered Institute of Information Security, and a member of the Steering Group for the Cyber Security Body of Knowledge (CyBOK) and the Careers and Learning Working Group within the UK Cyber Security Council. Steve is the Principal Investigator on the CyCOS project, looking at enhancing cyber security support for small organisations.

Steven Furnell’s webpage