TIRANA, March 13, 2023 – Tirana hosted on Monday a conference on cyber security, presented by General (ret) Yves Mathian, Vice-President of Cristal Group International, a French company specializing in business intelligence. In charge of cyber security activities, he was a few years ago technical director of the French Intelligence Services (DGSE).
The event was organized by the Chamber of Commerce and Industry France-Albania and was chaired by Ambassador of France Elisabeth Barsacq, in the presence of several ambassadors of European countries and Eduard Shalsi, former minister and chairman of the friendship group France-Albania in the Albanian Parliament. Crown Prince Leka Zogu, head of the Albanian royal family, also attended.
After the opening of the conference by Julien Roche, president of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry France-Albania, the French Ambassador, then the head of the friendship group France-Albania successively evoked the major importance of the subject.
Cédric Grousset, French military expert within the security cooperation of the French Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs in Montenegro, was also welcomed. He presented the ambitious project, which he is in charge of, of the creation of a Cyber Capacity Development Center in the Western Balkans.
This conference on the emergence of cyber risks took on a particular importance a few months after a major computer attack of which Albania was a victim.
During this event, General Mathian highlighted the increasingly devastating risks that weigh on administrations and companies and stressed the responsibility of leaders in conducting a necessary policy of prevention, awareness and protection of information.
He also mentioned the computer attacks that can be suffered by industrial systems and organizations of vital importance (hospitals, ports, energy systems…). After having outlined the typology of attackers and their modes of action which are constantly evolving, he addressed the field of mobile telecommunications and drew the audience’s attention to the precautions to be taken in the choice of their mobile messaging system, as smartphones can be the object of serious infections via mass-market applications which compromise the confidentiality of their exchanges.
Finally, he underlined the important risks associated with the emergence of new artificial intelligence applications. These could in the future constitute real threats to the confidentiality of our data.
The audience was won over by the concrete approach of this conference and the pragmatic recommendations that were formulated in a field that may appear to some to be either complex or far from their usual concerns.
