This year, PwC Luxembourg is holding its annual Cybersecurity & Privacy Days on 20, 21, 27 and 28 October 2021. Hosted within the framework of the Cybersecurity Week, the event gives Luxembourg the opportunity to highlight and support the cybersecurity startups most capable of safeguarding our digital information against unwarranted attacks.
Since the early beginnings of the internet, there have always been some parties who have been more interested in using the internet for nefarious purposes than for the public good. While institutions are desperately trying to secure our data from cyber attacks, it seems as if they are often a step behind and that our data is never quite as safe as we would like. Luckily, businesses and startups do not suffer from the same challenges as governments and are often better suited to respond to issues of cybersecurity.
PwC hosts its Cybersecurity and Privacy Days because it wants to position Luxembourg as a leader of cybersecurity by attracting the best cybersecurity startups, experts and investors looking for opportunities able to respond to the recent increase in cybersecurity attacks.
Last year, the world moved online, Zoom meetings became an every day staple for many (unfortunately) and businesses struggled to come up with online solutions to keep afloat. However, with the rise in online activity and business also came a rise in cyber attacks, data breaches and ransomware emergencies. While many companies have tried to keep these attacks from the public, experts in cybersecurity have coined the term “cyber pandemic” to describe how bad last year’s increase in attacks was.
Responding to the cyber pandemic
In 2020, the total number of compromised records increased by an astonishing 141% compared to the previous year. To put this in perspective, most years see average increases of 5-10%. Given the unprecedented rise in cyber attacks, it is no surprise that this year’s Cybersecurity & Privacy days are all about finding the most innovative solutions addressing major cybersecurity or privacy challenges.
As Koen Maris, Cybersecurity Leader from PwC Luxembourg says: “One only has to pick up any paper or go online to see that the current wave of attacks is increasingly making companies victims, citizens casualties and holding privacy hostage.” He adds: “This year we are really looking for well considered solutions as we move further into a world of remote work and inter connectivity where privacy has become a commodity, hackers are growing bolder in their hunt for unauthorised access and individuals and companies need to collect, store and share their data in a more intelligent way.”
Any startup that thinks it has what takes to respond to the challenges of the cyber pandemic can sign up now for the Cybersecurity and Privacy days in October. The applications for the pitching competition will be open until the 30th June and the announcements of the top 5 startups will be announced on 17th September. These will be able to benefit from excellent coaching session by the PwC team and have the opportunity to gain important credibility with investors and experts.
The growing event will be attended by more than 200 people including CISOs, DPOs, CIOs, CROs and VCs of major companies from Luxembourg and abroad and will be hosted in a hybrid format.
