The Irwin Hall was packed (9 April) for the weekend’s Cyber security presentation with guest speaker Old Cottonian Somnath Banerjee (Rivaz 1989) who was returning to the school after 32 years.
Mr Banerjee’s talks on Cyber Security and Wildlife Photography had the audience gripped with safety tips on passwords, phishing traps and Cyber fraud keeping the Cottonians’ informed, and hopefully safe.
Mr Banerjee specializes in the Cyber Security field as Head of Professional Services & Advanced Technical Account Management (ATAM) India & South Asia at Check Point Software Technologies, Ltd. He is also a professional Wildlife photographer.
Mr Banerjee said; “I would look forward to having a few of them join my organization as a part of the incident response function as “Ethical Hackers” and Red Teaming experts where they could be really useful in that way and do good for humanity. I’m really impressed with the Cottonians’ cyber security knowledge.”
Part of the lecture touched on Cyber wars that can break out between countries i.e. even right now during the Russia/Ukraine conflict and how the fake news can affect the public’s perception. Big corporations are employing whole teams to secure their data safety against the online criminals which can be very destructive if not handled correctly.
The main message was not to be fooled by people you don’t know on the web, in whatever capacity – whether this is on a personal level with social media platforms with ‘friends’ or by so-called ‘banks’ trying to fool people by accessing their account details or contacts.
Mr Banerjee is also a keen wildlife photographer in his spare time and took the BCS photography club out for special workshop around the campus showing them how to get the best shot.
