Workshop on ‘Cybersecurity: Future Challenges & Network Defenses’
SARSMR organized a workshop on ‘Cybersecurity: Future Challenges & Network Defenses’ on September 22nd 2023 at King Saud University. This event was sponsored by Gulf Science, Innovation and Knowledge Economy (GSIKE) program of the British government. The main objective of this workshop was to bring together cybersecurity experts, academicians and scientists to discuss the daunting and prevailing challenges and their solutions in protecting the cyberspace.
In the opening ceremony, Dr. Mohammed S AL-Numay, the director of SARSMR, welcomed the audience to the workshop and delivered a brief presentation about the mission, ambition, services, productivity and outcome of the center. The chief guest of the workshop, Prof. Ahmad Al-Salman, the Dean of Scientific Research at KSU, delivered his welcome remarks and appreciations to the event organizers. He underscored the importance and value of such scientific events in exchanging ideas and building synergy for mutual collaborative benefits.
The opening ceremony was followed by a brief address of Ms. Cheryl Gillan, the director of the UK Gulf Science Innovation Knowledge Economy Program (GSIKE), who presented an overview and plans of the UK-KSA Science Innovation and Knowledge Economy Partnerships for joint research projects and cooperation between the two countries.
Several renowned and distinguished national and international speakers presented a series of keynote speeches on the fascinating and interesting topics of cybersecurity. The moderation and facilitation of the event was performed by Dr. Abdullah Bin Mohammad, an assistant professor at KSU. In the first session, five eminent speakers namely, Dr. Konstantinos Kyriakopoulos (Loughborough University), Dr. Hoda Al-Khzaimi (New York University Abu Dhabi Campus), Dr. Marco Cannini (KAUST), Dr. Hazim Al-Muhimedi (KACST), and Prof. Shazia Allye (CoEIA KSU) presented a series of keynote speeches on multifarious areas of Cybersecurity. These experts presented the results and outcomes of their outstanding research to address the challenges of cybersecurity.
The workshop proceedings were followed by a panel discussion session, in which prominent scientists discussed the cybersecurity challenges with a different perspective to build secure and resilient solutions for protecting the cyberspace from hostile adversaries. The panel discussion was moderated by Dr. Basel Alomair (KACST) and the panelists, Prof. Jonathan Chambers (Leicester/Loughborough University), Prof. Mohammad Al-Affendi (Prince Sultan University), Dr. Hoda Al-Khzaimi (New York University Abu Dhabi Campus), and Dr. Jalal Almuhtadi (SARSMR) enlightened the audience with their thoughts, experience and opinions to tackling cybersecurity challenges and building solutions for a resilient cyberspace.
In the second keynote speeches session, Dr. Francisco Navarro (Newcastle University), Dr. Omar Alhazmi (Taibah University), Dr. Y. Tian (KSU) and Dr. Hamad Salleeh (Imam Mohammad University) delivered lectures on multiple areas of security and presented their research outcomes.
At the end, Prof. S. Lambotharan (Loughborough University) concluded the event and uttered the recommendations of the workshop. The event was attended by a large number of attendees from academia, industry and public and private sector organizations. It is to note that this workshop was the second iteration of its series and SARSMR is determined to continue this event annually. Last year, the workshop was successfully co-organized with KAUST and received an overwhelming response from the academia and industry.