PhD Series 4 – Iain Nash

Lawpod Director Rachel Killean talks to PhD candidate Iain Nash about his research which is focused on examining how nation-states regulate cybersecurity with a particular focus on consumer protection and Smart Devices.

He is particularly interested in how we can legislate for ‘post-data’ cybersecurity, as we now live in an environment where our connected devices can have a physical impact on our lives, and whether we can apply a Cadbury code style of governance to technology markets.Iain is a late-stage PhD student; His undergrad (’08) and MA (’10) were in Economics (TCD and Warwick) and he then did an LLM in QUB back in 2010. He has worked in banking and tech companies over the past decade, although for a couple of years was involved in a startup, where he was involved in working with cybersecurity companies in Israel and the USA, helping them market their products.He started the PhD in Feb 2019 on a part-time, distance basis.

Some resources:Working Paper Link: https://iainnash.ie/content/Cybersecurity_In_A_Post_Data_Environment.pdfTruncated abstract:This paper outlines the threats which are posed by the hacking of Smart Devices, and provides a rudimentary methodology to apportion liability to either the manufacturer or the user, where appropriate, following a hack. This is done in a robust manner, from a technologically agnostic perspective, to ensure a persistent relevance in the face of unrelenting technological advancement.

Good books (non academic)
Bruce Schneier – Click Here To Kill Everybody
Bruce Schneier – Schneier on Security
Joel Brenner – America The Vulnerable

Good blogs:Ross Anderson’s blog: https://www.lightbluetouchpaper.org/ (always a fascinating read)
Brian Krebs’ blog: https://krebsonsecurity.com/

Interesting Reads:Stuxnet (where it all began from a cyber physical threat perspective) – https://www.wired.com/2014/11/countdown-to-zero-day-stuxnet

NotPetya – https://www.wired.com/story/notpetya-cyberattack-ukraine-russiacode-crashed-the-world

Wannacry – https://www.theverge.com/2017/5/12/15630354/nhs-hospitals-ransomware-hack-wannacry-bitcoin & https://www.theverge.com/2017/5/14/15637472/renault-nissan-shut-down-french-uk-factories-wannacrycyberattack

Mirai (the largest [at the time] Botnet in the world, made up of mostly IoT devices) – https://blog.cloudflare.com/inside-mirai-the-infamous-iot-botnet-a-retrospective-analysis/