Vincent Laurens, Euroclear - A Cyber Hero by CaptainCyber

What is your cyber CV ?

In two words, I am the head of information systems security for the Euroclear group. Euroclear is a settlement specialist that plays a major role in European and global financial transactions. It is a systemic player and a critical market infrastructure. We work for banks. We also work with what we call our network, an ecosystem that can include CCPs, CSDs, which are central security depositories. Basically, bonds, funds and bills.

How are we protected against cyber attacks at Euroclear?

The core of Euroclear is to provide our ecosystem with transaction systems on safety and availability, but also the safety of the transaction. I am fortunate to have a management team up to board level that is aware of this pillar, that is aware of these issues and that supports my strategy. The cyber pillar, in the regulatory sense of the term, is evolving. We have new regulations coming in, we have new laws to which we are subject and my number one challenge will be to comply with these laws.

Will people still be at the heart of cyber protection in 5 years?

There is a real recruitment war on the outside for cyber profiles and so I have a "people" strategic axis which aims to maintain constant reactivity in terms of recruitment. But the stakes, our controls and the management of our risks must be guaranteed. So, we may automate to be able to recruit a little less. Nevertheless, we will maintain this trend as far as we can. Will artificial intelligence and behavioral analysis systems help us go faster and do better? Yes, but at the end of the day, in five years, in ten years, there will always be a human decision factor.

How do you make your family aware of cyber security?

My children are part of this generation that I call Generation Z, who are hyper-connected to video games, tablets, etc. And with them, we have had a lot of experience with cyber security. And with them, we had a very didactic approach. We presented them with concrete cases, showed them where it could lead, and told them what to do and what not to do in a very simple and pictorial way, which allows them to react to elements that they see, for example, that they have a popup that appears on the tablet right away, it's "ah, I have a problem" and it's by repeating and being with them that we manage to obtain results.