THE CYBERSECURITY REVOLUTION

Cybersecurity is a complex problem that is thankfully being addressed by researchers and professionals across the world, each dedicated to reducing risks online. Sustainable solutions require thinking that crosses cultures, disciplines and perspectives. The more these researchers know about each other’s work and the more we understand about all of their findings, the better we are able to make decisions for a safer online space.

Unfortunately, bringing everyone together is time-consuming and costly. The reality of modern academia locks important discoveries away. Those seeking knowledge from research can be blocked by:

• Geography, as conferences can be costly to attend,
• Travel restrictions, as unforeseen events can make travel unsafe
• Jargon, as increasingly specialized fields require complex terminology and methods
• Noise, as it becomes more difficult to recognize strong proofs and scientific consensus in the volume of research available online.

SECREV is an annual event, that streams from locations around the world, following the sun to provide a truly international exchange of cybersecurity knowledge. It combines streaming and social media to create an open and inclusive event for sharing and discussing cybersecurity. It was conceived to openly encourage sharing and interaction among the wider cybersecurity research community. This event has been established with the goals of:

• Increasing the capacity of researchers to share their findings effectively online
• Create opportunities for exchange between groups around the world that are working on cybersecurity
• Provide a near zero cost event to enable groups to contribute and collaborate

SECREV is made possible largely by the volunteer efforts of the participants. Due to this, we have been able to prioritize the open sharing of knowledge that is unbiased by commercial concerns. While we recognize the important contribution made by for profit cybersecurity organizations, this event is to support the organizations and individuals doing work towards the public good that provides no specific benefit to an individual or individual company.

The Cybersecurity Revolution is hosted by the Human-Centric Cybersecurity Partnership, https://www.hc2p.ca/. The HC2P argues that cybersecurity should not be seen as an exclusively technical problem anymore, but as a social problem that needs human-centred solutions. Its research program will explore the two defining features of human-centric cybersecurity: the complex interactions between humans and machines, one one hand, and the new configurations of public, private and not-for-profit stakeholders, on the other hand. The Human-Centric Cybersecurity Partnership (HC2P) leverages a transdisciplinary group of scholars, government, industry and not-for-profit partners to generate research and mobilize knowledge that will help create a safer, more secure, more democratic and more inclusive digital society.The HC2P is supported in part by funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, Canada.

The Cybersecurity Revolution Organizing Committee is:

Michael Joyce - Human-Centric Cybersecurity Partnership - Université de Montréal,
Prof. Gibum Kim - Sungkyunkwan University,
Pamela Kitchen - Canadian Institute for Cybersecurity - University of New Brunswick,
Prof. Iain Reid - Centre for Cybercrime and Economic Crime - University of Portsmouth,
Mike Toro - Southern Illinois University,
Melissa Turp-Yonezawa - Human-Centric Cybersecurity Partnership - Université de Montréal.