Scotiabank announced a $2 million donation to the University of British Columbia (UBC) to accelerate cybersecurity and financial risk research.
The Scotiabank Cybersecurity and Risk Analytics Initiative will support UBC researchers and statistics professors to better understand the impacts of cyberattacks.
“Data theft costs organizations billions of dollars a year worldwide, and cause psychological and social harm for individual customers. The Scotiabank Cybersecurity and Risk Analytics Initiative at UBC will advance the industry’s collective understanding of how to further protect digital assets,” said Michael Zerbs, chief technology officer at Scotiabank. Zerbs added that the support would contribute to research, and help students advance financial modelling that manages risks and protect customers.
Over the next five years, the donation will support the Creative Destruction Lab West (CDL West) at the UBC Sauder School of Business. This is an extension of Scotiabank’s $1.75 million donation to initiatives at the Rotman School of Management in the University of Toronto, including five years of support to its CDL Lab.
There is a growing concern over cybersecurity in businesses, especially with the rise of quantum computing. In December 2016, a Global Risk Institute report said that there is a one in seven risk that these technologies will undermine critical public-key cryptography tools within the next ten years.
Earlier this year, another report by a Toronto-based law firm named cybersecurity among the top ten legal risks for businesses.