Dawson Group’s Information Technology (IT) team was honoured to share their experiences and learn from others during Thompson Rivers University’s eighth annual Security and Privacy Conference last week.

More than 400 industry professionals and eager students attended the two-day event at the Campus Activity Centre. This year’s theme explored the delicate balance between providing security and privacy — realizing they must live in harmony. Some of the many topics discussed included: data collection, identity theft, fraud detection, identity access management, tracking surveillance, authentication methods and much more.

“Cyber security threats are rapidly evolving. There are a lot of fast-moving, malicious programs out there that are always innovating on how to disrupt others,” said Brian Eshpeter, Dawson Group Director of IT. “These conferences are a very valuable way to come together as a group and learn things from other experienced professionals.”

Eshpeter was featured in a panel of experts from various sectors, to share their experiences and knowledge in cyber security. Moderated by local Kamloops company Vivacity Technologies’ CEO George Emery, this keynote session provided the audience with privacy and security challenges and innovations across various industries. Eshpeter was joined by Andrew Kowalchuk (Systems Analyst) and Daniel Fernandez (Information Systems Analyst) from Dawson Group’s IT department, where they listened to keynote speakers and joined different breakout sessions, each learning and discussing professional and personal experiences with cyber security and privacy.

“These conferences can serve as a real wakeup call as to the risks that are out there, while also providing information on how to protect ourselves against potential issues down the road,” said Eshpeter.

One of the latest innovations that is trying infiltrate Dawson Group’s cyber security have been through text messages. Employees have reported text messages from malicious accounts claiming to be someone from our company, asking the employee to purchase gift cards.

If you receive a text message from an unrecognizable number, please consider the following actions:

  • Is the message expected?
  • Does the sender or the link look genuine?
  • Is the message poorly presented?
  • Does the message ask for an unusual action?
  • Does the message have a sense of urgency?

If you are interested in working for a company that is an industry leader against malicious cyber attacks, then please check out the latest postings on our Careers Page.