In Conversation with Innovation Spotter Earl Crane

The SPOT – meet the guest speakers!
Doctor Earl Crane, Founder and CEO of Emergynt and President Obama’s former head of cybersecurity, explains in an interview with iSportconnect why cybersecurity goes far beyond data breaches and how security breaches can harm sport or disrupt events.

Jay Stuart
In Conversation:

Waking Up to Cyber Dangers

Sport is at risk from internet attacks and the dangers may not be what you think. With hacking and data mis-use scandals in the headlines as never before, delegates at The SPOT will not want to miss the opportunity to listen to President Obama’s former head of cybersecurity, Doctor Earl Crane, who says threats are getting worse. “We are getting better at protection, but the attackers are more skilled and there are more of them.”

A professor at Carnegie Mellon University, Crane is co-founder and CEO of Emergynt, whose clients include the International Paralympic Committee.

“Sport organisations as connected enterprises need to think strategically about cybersecurity,” he said. “They need to be aware of their risks and we can help them identify if they are taking more risk than they should.”

People inside sport might automatically think someone wants access to confidential athlete data to hide wrongdoing or gain a competitive edge. But the aim of a security breach might be to disrupt an event and cause embarrassment to a sport or an organisation or event. A good example would be the leak of confidential e-mails or the hacking of an event which affects internet and television services.

The starting point for cyber awareness is understanding why hackers might attack you and what they could want.

“Ask yourself what makes you nervous,” Crane advises.  “People’s instincts are good and they often don’t give themselves enough credit.”

Because the environment is changing so fast, senior officials who might appear negligent if there is a security breach can find themselves in the uncomfortable position of trying to predict the future in a space they don’t understand. Meanwhile, the technicians need to be able to communicate emerging risks, priority, and impact to non-technical decision-makers.

“I don’t want to scare people about cybersecurity,” he said. “That’s old and passé. I want to encourage them to think differently. Cybersecurity is not just about data breaches. It’s also about digital risk more broadly and understanding how your sport or event might suffer.”

www.thespot2018.org

In the same series:

• In Conversation with Innovation Spotter Brett Abarbanel
• In Conversation with Innovation Spotter Kim Blair
• In Conversation with Innovation Spotter Earl Crane
• In Conversation with Innovation Spotter An Dang Duy
• ​In Conversation with Innovation Spotter Olivier Glauser
• In Conversation with Innovation Spotter Jonathan Levene
• In Conversation with Innovation Spotter Daniel Marion
• In Conversation with Innovation Spotter Federico Winer