Leading cybersecurity researchers from the United States, Ireland and Northern Ireland are partnering to identify and solve urgent, global cybersecurity challenges. The alliance between researchers from Lero, the SFI Research Centre for Software headquartered at University of Limerick, Rochester Institute of Technology, New York, and Queen’s University Belfast aims to ensure that advances in cybersecurity research can be applied to improve the resilience and security of US and Ireland’s digital economies in the face of an increasingly complex international threat landscape.

“Cybersecurity is one of the highest risks facing our digitally enabled economies,” commented Professor Bashar Nuseibeh, Chief Scientist of Lero, Ireland ahead of the group’s workshop at Trinity College Dublin this week. “Its impact is extending even more deeply into the physical and social spaces in which we live and work. This new partnership will enable US and Irish researchers to work together to give key sectors of our economies the confidence to adopt and benefit from new technologies such as the Internet of Things”, he added.

As identified by the Cyber Ireland and Cyber Skills State of the Cyber Security Sector in Ireland sectoral analysis report, Ireland has a significant opportunity to grow the cybersecurity sector to 17,000 professionals with a Gross Value Added of €2.5bn by 2030. For Ireland to reach its potential, it needs to grow partnerships from across the globe to further build research capacity to deal with the increased cybercrime vulnerabilities arising from the rapid digitalisation and post covid hybrid nature of work.

“Cyber-attacks do not respect geographical boundaries,” explained Prof. S. Jay Yang from Global Cybersecurity Institute at Rochester Institute of Technology. “To defend our countries, critical infrastructure, and data, we need work together across country and disciplinary boundaries. By hosting this workshop researchers from across US, Ireland, and Northern Ireland will work collaboratively to advance the security postures for Cyber-Physical-Systems (CPS) and Internet-of-Things (IoT),” he continued.

Commenting on the workshop, Dr Paul Miller from Queen’s University Belfast said, “This workshop offers a great opportunity for cybersecurity researchers North and South to further build relationships and collaborate with USA colleagues on the globally significant area of cybersecurity research and skills development for the internet of things.”   

The event and workshop took place in Dublin on October 20 and 21 and is sponsored by the National Science Foundation (USA), Science Foundation Ireland (Ireland) and the Department of the Economy (Northern Ireland).