17 December, 2018

Last week’s announcement of a new national cluster for cyber security expertise headquartered in CIT has been welcomed by the industry.

Cyber Ireland will represent companies working in the cyber security area which employs over 6000 people in the country.

With a board made up of representative from Government, academia and industry, it is envisaged that Cyber Ireland will be up and running by April 2019.

Dr Eoin Byrne, Cluster Manager at CIT says, “Without the cooperation of these three pillars, the cluster cannot reach its full potential. Industry must be at the core of the cluster, which needs to be championed by passionate and dedicated leaders. Academia is also critical in addressing the skills and training needs of industry".

Dr Sean McSweeney, Lecturer in Computer Science, says CIT’s computing students frequently engage with companies in this area as part of work placement and on final year undergraduate projects.

“This collaboration is a great opportunity for both the student and company. The student learns from the expertise within the company, getting to demonstrate their potential and enthusiasm, while the company can guide the development of a young professional before entering the company”.

This fostering of relationships often results in research collaborations, workshops, scholarships and talks to the undergraduate and postgraduate cohorts. Dr McSweeney points to two exemplars of engagement with cybersecurity companies: McKesson and Cylance. Both companies have benefited from the experience which has resulted in tangible outcomes.

Tom Bonner, Director of Threat Research EMEA at Cylance says it’s been an absolute pleasure and privilege to host interns from CIT over the past 12 months. “Having met with the faculty beforehand it was abundantly clear that CIT offer an exceptionally high standard of industry relevant courses in IT Security, and the calibre of the nine students we welcomed to Cylance will certainly attest to that.”

Mr Bonner said it was it was vitally important to the company that they afforded these interns the same training and learning opportunities as any full-time threat researcher.

“It has been one of the most rewarding aspects of my career to watch them all grow in knowledge and confidence, surpass expectations and targets and blossom into fully fledged security professionals”, he added.

John McSweeney, SOC Manager at McKesson, says his company actively engage with student placement and enjoy developing talented students.

“Our focus would be to help mentor and guide the student through their final year project. Nudging the direction toward an important learning experience for the student, but also developing expertise for the students so when they join McKesson they have advanced skill sets that are directly connected to the company’s activities.”

Mr McSweeney says that as a very busy Intelligence Security Operations Centre Manager, the experience of mentoring and supporting 4th year final projects is very rewarding for him. “It structures our time around brainstorming, inventive problem solving and looking at solution spaces we don’t normally examine.”

He says if the quality of the work with the final year project is of a high enough standard there are opportunities to communicate this internally within the company and externally at conferences.

“Another huge benefit to the student is access to production tools and expert knowledge, our culture at McKesson Cork is made up of our friendliness and willingness to help others and our in-house expertise. We want to recruit people who will help build this culture and grow our organisation," Mr McSweeney added.

If you would like to collaborate with CIT get in touch. Email extendedcampus@cit.ie or call 021 4335302.