As ambassador for cybersecurity in Luxembourg, Luc Cottin will be advising and supporting all Luxembourg companies in their quest for effective, affordable IT security.
The “CISO of the Year 2024” was awarded at the end of Cybersecurity Week Luxembourg. Find out how Luc COTTIN, CEO of Rsecure, is working to help SMEs protect themselves from cyber risks.
At the 8th closing ceremony of the “Cybersecurity Week Luxembourg”, Luc Cottin, CEO of Rsecure and CISO of Rcube Professional Services Luc Cottin, CEO of Rsecure and CISO of Rcube Professional Services, had the great honor of receiving the “CISO of the Year 2024” award, and thus becoming one of Luxembourg’s cybersecurity ambassadors for the coming year.
“My role as representative of Luxembourg’s cybersecurity ecosystem will be to act as a point of reference for all the country’s small businesses, freelancers and VSEs/SMEs! These structures need to feel supported and backed up in the cybersecurity landscape, because as they now know, a large number of small businesses are also victims of hackers!”
As they have done every year for the past 8 years, Luxembourg’s cybersecurity authorities, including the Luxembourg House of Cybersecurity, CIRCL, CLUSIL, the National Cybersecurity Competence Center (NC3) and the Ministry of the Economy, organized an awards evening to honor 5 individuals for their involvement in the world of cybersecurity at national level: “Best Paper at hack. lu”, ‘Most Promising Young Talent’, ‘Cybersecurity Startup’, ‘DPO of the Year’ and ‘CISO of the Year’.
In his opening speech, French Minister of the Economy, Lex Delles, stressed the importance of cybersecurity players supporting and helping SMEs in their quest for affordable solutions to protect themselves against cyber risks. This is indeed the mission that Luc Cottin set himself 3 years ago when he decided to take the plunge and set up his own cybersecurity company, Rsecure, offering affordable services and solutions for the small and medium-sized business market in Luxembourg and the Greater Region.
“I’d like the country’s small and medium-sized businesses to know that there are competent, attentive operators and security services on a human scale at prices everyone can afford! Indeed, in Luxembourg there are many large companies, but there are a greater number of VSEs/SMEs which are very important to the country’s economy, and they are the most vulnerable!”
Numerous national and European regulations, such as NIS2 and DORA, are being introduced to address the risks associated with information systems. These new rules, imposed on a whole range of different types of company, are having an increasing impact on smaller businesses, which don’t know when or how to tackle them, and who can’t afford the luxury of hiring an IT manager to do so.
“My challenge, as CISO ‘as a service’, is to be able to explain each new regulation to them, what benefits to draw (rather than seeing them as obstacles!) and to offer them ‘tailor-made’ solutions and services according to their maturity, their needs, their technical and budgetary constraints!”
When it comes to cyber threats, the risks are ever greater, and emerging threats ever more sophisticated, particularly with the democratization of the use of artificial intelligence, the increase in attack surfaces linked to connected objects and shadow IT.
“Any new technology implemented in a company must follow the same path before being deployed. Of course, it has to be tested, in every sense of the word! See how the intended use could be circumvented, see what access it will require. Then it has to go through the risk management process: what risks will it generate? Are the risks acceptable, transferable, circumventable or erasable?”
Businesses can be protected from current and future risks by a wide range of “basic” tools, such as firewalls, antispam, antivirus, backup and recurring software updates, but also by much more advanced or specific solutions such as artificial intelligence-based security platforms.
“To respond to emerging threats and the multitude of cyber tools on the market, I have developed an S.O.C. (Security Operation Center) service accessible to all companies to address the vast majority of issues. Our SOC, made up of a team of experts based in Luxembourg, will, thanks to a SIEM, detect threats (from over 190 solutions), respond to incidents, prevent and reinforce companies’ information systems, carry out continuous 24/7 monitoring and thus enable companies to begin a process of continuous improvement of their IT security systems.”
“This award shows that it is possible to provide IT security on a human scale for all companies in Luxembourg. It’s also a recognition of all the SMEs in Luxembourg!”