Leading cybersecurity researchers from the United States, Ireland and Northern Ireland are partnering to identify and solve urgent, global cybersecurity challenges.

The goal of the alliance is to ensure that advances in cybersecurity research can be applied to improve the resilience and security of the digital economies of the US and Ireland in the face of an increasingly complex international threat landscape.

"Cybersecurity is one of the highest risks facing our digitally-enabled economies. 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," says Prof Bashar Nuseibeh, Chief Scientist of Lero – The SFI Research Centre for Software, Ireland.

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 GVA 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.

Donna O’Shea, Chair of Cybersecurity at MTU, is leading the organisation of an event and workshop focused on addressing these challenges and opportunities. The event and workshop will be hosted by Trinity College Dublin (TCD) on the 20-21st October 2023 and will be sponsored by the National Science Foundation (US), Science Foundation Ireland (Ireland) and Department of the Economy (Northern Ireland). It will feature key contributors

"Cyber-attacks do not respect geographical boundaries. 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)," says Prof. S. Jay Yang, from Global Cybersecurity Institute at Rochester Institute of Technology.

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."