Conversations with IAM Cyberheroes - Cécile Boyer

Date: 2024-09-11
Author: Versasec

Our final guest is Cécile Boyer. Cécile has more than 15 years of experience in developing Channel networks in Cybersecurity, and is currently working at Yubico.

What do you enjoy the most about working in cybersecurity?

Since I have been in Cybersecurity, which was originally called IT Security, so many things have changed for the better. At first and for a very long time, IT security was perceived as a cost to an organisation, and it was always complex for a customer to get the budget approved. The requirements were also in line with the challenges of the time, virus, spam, FW and that was pretty much it. Cybersecurity in the last 10 years has changed so much and it is constantly changing, which makes working in cybersecurity an engaging and fulfilling area to work in.

What are you most concerned about when you hear news about cyber attacks?

I am always concerned about the vulnerabilities of critical infrastructures, such as healthcare, energy, and financial systems. When criminals are going to regularly use AI technology it will highly accelerate the frequency and sophistication of scams, fraud, impersonation, ransomware and could lead to great cyberattacks on infrastructure.

Do you think phishing attacks could ever be eliminated?

Cybersecurity has evolved in protecting companies against cyberattacks, but hackers have also rapidly adapted. It is a cat-and-mouse game, and it is not due to stop anytime soon. However, companies should first adopt a strong MFA and ideally a phishing-resistant MFA to stop phishing-attacks and account takeover, which is very much used by hackers to obtain credential and passwords. Today hackers do not hack but they log-in as they can easily find the users’ credentials and passwords.

On a scale of 0 to 10, with 10 being the highest, where do you think enterprises are when it comes to adopting modern MFA?

I think we are at about 5-6. Large Enterprises have made significant progress in adopting MFA OTP, SMS, Authenticators, but passwords remain for some group of users. However, medium-sized business lag behind due to cost, complexity or resistance to change. Phishing-resistant or passwordless MFA is more at a scale of 2-3 but, I believe that the introduction of Fido2 is going to help companies to adopt passwordless authentication much faster than in the past.

In your everyday work, do you or your team members feel like superheroes against cybercrime?

Lol. We aim at doing our best at advising customers about their security weakest points and help them to avoid falling victim of the most known and used Cyber-attacks. Hackers are always going to use the weakest point to penetrate an organisation and today password authentication is definitely one of them.

About our Guest

Cécile Boyer has more than 15 years experience in developing Channel networks in Cybersecurity. She has a strong experience in the MEA region and is focusing on driving customer demand through an enable Yubico’s partner ecosystem. YubiKeys deliver the highest assurance passkeys with phishing-resistant MFA to stop account takeovers.

Disclaimer: Cécile Boyer’s opinions on this blog do not necessarily reflect those of her employer.