Results of the meeting “Business in Cybersecurity: Wartime Challenges” under USAID Project “Cybersecurity of Ukraine's Critical Infrastructure”

Summary of Meeting “Business in Cybersecurity: Wartime Challenges” under USAID Project “Cybersecurit

The meeting hosts were committed to creating a unified and proactive community of stakeholders that will contribute to improving cybersecurity in Ukraine through measurable and sustainable initiatives for community building and dialogue.

The meeting was focused on sharing experience, gained in wartime, adapting best practices and consolidating the efforts of stakeholders to create a sustainable business environment. The dialogue was held according to the requirements of Chatham House, where business challenges in cybersecurity and services consumption were discussed to further identify ways to overcome them, outlining the need to optimize regulations to ensure the sustainable functioning of the cybersecurity business in wartime.

One of the speakers of the event was Andrii Borenkov, Head of Advisory at BDO in Ukraine. Andrii has over 15 years of professional experience in financial consulting and investment business. He is a professional in M&A, investment fundraising, IPO and consulting in Digital business transformation.

The key issues during the discussion were the following:

How do the representatives of the cybersecurity industry plan to recover the IT market?
What should be the state policy as to stimulate the consumption of cybersecurity technologies and services by public and private critical infrastructure?
What state programs and projects can currently have a significant impact on critical industries and consumers to encourage them to focus more on cybersecurity and cyber technology implementation?
What cybersecurity products and services are currently in high demand among consumers?
What financial and regulatory instruments are needed to stimulate the growth of the domestic IT consumption market?
How does IT business assess the current activities of state bodies involved in cybersecurity? What is being done right for the market and what needs to be strengthened or changed?
What are the challenges that speakers have faced that would indicate either the absence or weakness of the legal framework, which negatively affects the cyber resilience of critical industries?
How does the cybersecurity industry currently support the state and state critical infrastructure facilities (personnel, experience, resources)? Has mobilization affected business? Is it necessary to “streamline” the involvement and use of cybersecurity industry personnel by the state for active actions in cyberspace?
How effective and structured is the interaction between representatives of the cybersecurity industry, state bodies and critical infrastructure facilities? Have you had experience of being involved by the state or critical infrastructure facilities in dealing with cyber incidents? Was this experience positive? Are there relevant structural and technical frameworks in place to improve such interaction?

Andrii Borenkov shared the experience of BDO in Ukraine in IT infrastructure from the beginning of the full-scale war in Ukraine up to now.

The unique experience of working in extreme circumstances is worthy of special attention. According to covid times experience, our company was well prepared to work in emergency situations. 2-years of experience of working remotely enabled our employees to keep working from any place where it was safe and there was access to the Internet.

In addition, since the beginning of the war, we had to ensure smooth activities of the company, as we are responsible for more than 200 employees. And the product, with which we successfully joined the international market, was cyber security services. Although currently the range of services, offered by the Ukrainian digital market, is not wide enough (compared to the capabilities of European companies), the Ukrainian digital industry has a huge potential, given the experience we have gained during the russian-Ukrainian cyber war.

Also, it is worth mentioning that BDO in Ukraine combines advisory services and solutions in digital technologies under the brand — BDO Digital. BDO Digital is a proven set of digital solutions that supports businesses to optimize and expand their business in today's environment.