Lord Mayor’s Lecture | What Does Quantum Computing Mean For Cybersecurity?

Background:

Quantum computing promises a massive increase in processing power, opening up a world of calculations the like of which we have never seen before. We’ll be able to solve global problems by crunching data much more quickly. But this new era also threatens to crack the encryption algorithms used to secure our private messages and financial transactions. This lecture explores how the business world can rise to this challenge, and the potential impact of quantum computing on other aspects of cybersecurity, including real time automated defence.

Speaker:

Professor Victoria Baines is a leading authority in the field of online trust, safety and cybersecurity. She frequently contributes to major broadcast media outlets – BBC Newsnight, Radio 4, and Sky News among them – on digital ethics, cybercrime, and the misuse of emerging technologies such as Extended Reality and Artificial Intelligence. Her most memorable media appearance to date was a live face-off with Piers Morgan on Good Morning Britain, which she maintains she won.

She is Professor of Information Technology at Gresham College, London’s oldest higher education institution, where she is responsible for delivering public lectures that demystify world-changing technologies for ‘ordinary’ people. Victoria has published on cyberspace governance, online surveillance, the future of cybercrime, and the politics of security. Drawing on her Classical education, her book Rhetoric of Insecurity (Routledge, 2021) sheds light on 2000 years of security speech and is a toolkit for understanding why security issues always seem to be so novel, urgent and divisive.

For several years Victoria was Facebook’s Trust & Safety Manager for Europe, Middle East, and Africa. Before joining Facebook, Victoria led the Strategy team at Europol’s European Cybercrime Centre (EC3), where she was responsible for the EU’s cyber threat analysis. Prior to this, Victoria was Principal Analyst at the UK Child Exploitation and Online Protection (CEOP) Centre. She began her career in law enforcement as a Higher Intelligence Analyst for Surrey Police. In 2008, the International Association for Law Enforcement Intelligence Analysts recognised Victoria’s work with a global award for outstanding achievement.

She is co-host of the award-nominated Cyber Warrior Princess podcast, explaining cybersecurity for a popular audience. She regularly addresses both specialist and non-specialist audiences and has been named as one of the top 25 women in cybersecurity (IT Guru & SC Magazine). She is a Liveryman of the City of London and Chair of the Security Panel of the Worshipful Company of Information Technologists, the voice of the IT industry in the City. She serves on the Advisory Boards of Snapchat, cybersecurity provider Reliance ACSN, and is a trustee of the Lucy Faithfull Foundation.

Victoria is a graduate of Trinity College, Oxford and holds a doctorate from the University of Nottingham. She is a Senior Research Associate of the Intellectual Forum at Jesus College, Cambridge, and Senior Research Fellow at the British Foreign Policy Group. From 2017 to 2020 she was a Visiting Research Fellow at Oxford University and was a guest lecturer at Stanford University in 2019 and 2020.

Register for the free online lecture here: https://register.gotowebinar.com/register/825801835868331861