The Compliance Reality Check: What Irish Organisations Actually Need to Do

Session 3: REGULATORY COMPLIANCE & GOVERNANCE

The Compliance Reality Check:

What Irish Organisations Actually Need to Do

Watch On Demand

Overview:

The deadlines have passed and regulators are watching. This session moves beyond theory to examine what NIS2 and DORA compliance looks like in practice. We address incident reporting, supply chain risk requirements, board-level accountability and the documentation regulators expect, with lessons from organisations that have been through the process.

Conference Room 1 – Session 3

Facilitator

Dr. Vivienne Mee

Founder VM Group

Vivienne has worked on large electronic discovery cases both in Ireland and across Europe with various forensic teams. As part of her PhD studies, Vivienne was a member of the Information Security Research Group at the University of Glamorgan. Here she spent a number of years working at their Forensic Laboratory, investigating cybercrimes and latest trends which fed into extensive research with the Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA), Ministry of Defence, Defence Science & Technology Labs and UK Security Service (MI5).

Panelists

Richard Howson

Channel and Distribution Manager UK&I, Impossible Cloud

Richard Howson is the Channel and Distribution Manager at Impossible Cloud, leading the company’s Irish expansion and building a dynamic partner ecosystem. He works closely with MSPs and distributors across the UK and Ireland to deliver truly sovereign, high-performance S3 cloud storage – built in Europe, for European customers. With a background in cloud and managed services, Richard is passionate about challenging hyperscaler dominance, enabling partners to unlock new margin, and bring real data sovereignty and choice back to their customers.

Presentation on:

Cloud Reality Check: Debunking 5 Myths That Create Compliance Risk

View Presentation Abstract
Cloud Reality Check: Debunking 5 Myths That Create Compliance Risk

Cloud infrastructure underpins almost every Irish organisation – yet five persistent myths about data sovereignty, performance, cost, and enterprise readiness are quietly creating compliance risk under NIS2, DORA, and GDPR. From the assumption that data stored in a European data centre is automatically sovereign, to the belief that all cloud storage is equal, these misconceptions are pushing organisations toward hyperscaler dependency, hidden costs, and regulatory exposure. This session busts each myth with evidence, shows what genuine cloud sovereignty actually requires in architecture and governance terms, and leaves attendees with practical steps they can take immediately.

Jamie Gallagher

Associate Vice President Sales, Fortra

Jamie Gallagher is Associate Vice President, Sales at Fortra. Jamie joined Fortra in 2017 and manages the Fortra sales team across the EMEA region. His focus is data protection and secure file transfer solutions, both through direct and channel sales.

Jamie is a senior strategic sales leader with over 25 years of industry experience. Prior to working at Fortra, Jamie held several sales leadership roles with organisations including Reliance Cyber and Netintelligence.

Jamie supports mentoring to help people achieve their full potential. He is a member of Fortra’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) Council and advocates women, DEI and black issues in business. Jamie represents these initiatives as a regular speaker at company and industry events.

Jamie holds a BA Hons Degree in Business Studies from The University of Salford.

Presenting on: 

Cybersecurity for the Defence Supply Chain

View Presentation Abstract
Cybersecurity for the Defence Supply Chain

The EMEA Defence sector is undergoing a massive digital transformation, driven by an urgent need for strategic autonomy and a unified security of supply. This represents a unique but complex moment for Nations, Service Branches and the Defence Industrial Base. To win in this space against adversaries, you must deploy more than just tools. Customers are looking for integrated cybersecurity solutions that allow them to mitigate sophisticated threats and meet complex data security requirements, while reducing operational overhead. They want mission ready solutions that are battle proven. 

This session is designed to explain how members of the defence ecosystem can protect all of their key critical data and transfer it securely. It will explore how Fortra’s integrated cybersecurity portfolio, spanning Data Classification, Secure Email Gateway and Red Teaming solutions, allows organisations to address the complex data protection and compliance requirements in modern Defence projects. 

The session will cover: 

  • Key challenges and drivers for the Defence Industry. 
  • Which Fortra cybersecurity solutions are a good fit for customers in the Defence Industry. 
  • Fortra Defence Industry case studies. 

Cyber Conference 2026

KeyNote:

Power, Politics and AI: The Global Forces Driving Cyber Risk in 2026
Power, Politics and AI: The Global Forces Driving Cyber Risk in 2026

Cybersecurity is no longer just a technology problem; it’s also now a geopolitical one. State-sponsored actors are targeting critical infrastructure with increasing boldness, AI-powered political attacks are testing democratic institutions, and regulatory frameworks around data sovereignty are reshaping how organisations operate across borders. This opening keynote sets the tone for the day by examining the global forces that are driving cyber risk in 2026: from geopolitical disruption and the weaponisation of AI to the shifting regulatory landscape that every Irish organisation needs to navigate.

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AI IN CYBERSECURITY

Attack, Defend, Govern: The AI Security Playbook
Attack, Defend, Govern: The AI Security Playbook

AI is now embedded in every layer of the cybersecurity landscape. Attackers are using it to launch autonomous operations, generate convincing deepfakes and discover zero-day vulnerabilities at speed. Defenders are building AI-driven SOCs that detect and respond to threats in real time. And organisations everywhere are grappling with shadow AI, model risk and a wave of new regulation including the EU AI Act. This stream brings together security vendors at the cutting edge to address the full AI picture: offensive threats, defensive tools, governance frameworks, workforce readiness and the strategic shifts that will define secure organisations in 2026 and beyond.

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MSP & CHANNEL

Scaling Security: Building Profitable MSP Practices for 2026
Scaling Security: Building Profitable MSP Practices for 2026

MSPs serve as the frontline defence for hundreds of SMBs while managing their own operational and commercial pressures. This dedicated stream addresses security service delivery models, evolving customer expectations around compliance and cyber insurance, and practical approaches to vendor selection and stack consolidation. Speakers from successful MSPs share what’s working.

Not Available On Demand

DATA & INFRASTRUCTURE DEFENCE

Layered Defence: Protecting Data and Infrastructure Across Your Environment
Layered Defence: Protecting Data and Infrastructure Across Your Environment

No single control point is sufficient, and data remains the ultimate target. This session brings together endpoint, network, cloud and data security perspectives to explore how organisations can build layered defences that work together. We address EDR, next-generation firewalls, cloud workload protection, data discovery, classification and loss prevention, with particular focus on the risks introduced by generative AI adoption, the insider threat challenge, and the operational reality of tool proliferation and alert fatigue.

Watch On Demand

REGULATORY COMPLIANCE & GOVERNANCE

The Compliance Reality Check: What Irish Organisations Actually Need to Do
The Compliance Reality Check: What Irish Organisations Actually Need to Do

The deadlines have passed and regulators are watching. This session moves beyond theory to examine what NIS2 and DORA compliance looks like in practice. We address incident reporting, supply chain risk requirements, board-level accountability and the documentation regulators expect, with lessons from organisations that have been through the process.

Watch On Demand

RANSOMWARE & RESILIENCE

When Prevention Fails: Ransomware, Recovery and Operational Resilience
When Prevention Fails: Ransomware, Recovery and Operational Resilience

The question is no longer whether you’ll face a serious incident but how quickly you can recover. With ransomware attacks increasing in volume and sophistication, this session addresses the full lifecycle from prevention through to containment and recovery. We examine the critical importance of immutable backups, tested recovery procedures, and the often-overlooked challenge of Active Directory restoration.

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EMERGING THREATS

From Deepfakes to Quantum: The Next Wave of Threats You Need to Prepare for Now
From Deepfakes to Quantum: The Next Wave of Threats You Need to Prepare for Now

Deepfake technology is already being used to impersonate executives and bypass verification. Quantum computing threatens to undermine the encryption we rely on today. And geopolitical shifts are reshaping who is targeting whom and why. This session cuts through the noise to examine the emerging threats that Irish organisations need to take seriously now, not in five years’ time, and provides practical frameworks for building preparedness into your security strategy today.

Not Available On Demand

IDENTITY, DECEPTION & HUMAN RISK

Identity Compromise, Deception and the Human Attack Surface
Identity Compromise, Deception and the Human Attack Surface

Attackers don’t need to find a vulnerability when they can steal a credential or trick a human. From AI-generated phishing that’s virtually indistinguishable from legitimate communication to credential theft, privilege escalation and Active Directory compromise, the most common path into organisations now runs through people and their identities. This session examines how social engineering and identity attacks are converging, why Zero Trust must address both technical controls and human factors, and what practical defences look like when the threat is designed to bypass every instinct your users rely on.

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Closing Panel:

Security Leadership 2026: What Keeps CISOs Awake at Night
Security Leadership 2026: What Keeps CISOs Awake at Night

The day has covered a lot of ground, from geopolitical disruption and AI-powered attacks to regulatory pressure, ransomware resilience and the challenge of protecting critical infrastructure. In this closing panel, security leaders from across Irish industry reflect on what they’ve heard, share what resonates most with their own organisations, and offer a candid perspective on the decisions that will define cybersecurity leadership in the year ahead. Expect honest conversation about skills shortages, board-level expectations, AI governance and what it actually takes to keep an organisation secure in 2026.

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