The Weakest Link in Cyber Security

It is a widely recited mantra that, in cyber security, the human is the weakest link. But is this really the truth? Or might this even be an act of blaming the victim?

In this talk, Achim will present several cyber security incidents, discussing the role that humans, organisations, and technology played. In the light of what could have been done to prevent these incidents, we will scrutinise what the weakest link actually was.

Achim is a full Professor in Computer Science (Chair in Cybersecurity) and Head of the Cybersecurity Group at the University of Exeter, UK and a leading expert in secure software engineering, cybersecurity, and formal methods. He is the head of the Cybersecurity Group at Exeter and leads the Software Assurance & Security Research Team. From December 2015 to May 2019, he was a Senior Lecturer and Consultant at the Computer Science Department of The University of Sheffield, UK.

Until December 2015, Achim was a Research Expert (Architect), Security Testing Strategist, and Project Lead in the Global Security Team of SAP SE, where, among others, he defined the risk-based security testing strategy of SAP that combines static, dynamic, and interactive security testing methods and integrates them deeply into SAP’s Secure Software Development Life Cycle. He was involved in rolling out static and dynamic application security testing tools to the world-wide development organization of SAP. Moreover, he represented SAP in OCL standardization process of the OMG.