Matt O’Kane shares real-world cyber incidents

Cybersecurity resilience specialist Matt O’Kane has shared insights from real-world cyber incidents in the first episode of Cyber Horror Stories on First Focus.

O’Kane is recognised as a go-to figure when major cyber events unfold.

“My specialities include cyber resilience – that’s planning for when things go wrong and helping companies bounce back quickly, incident response, and digital forensics,” he said.

“Digital forensics is about helping workplaces answer questions, like, did the head of sales take the list of customers? Did the CFO sell secrets to the competition?”

“At Notion Digital Forensics we try and help people answer those questions by studying or monitoring their machines.”

“We help people recover after a breach.”

In the episode, O’Kane spoke about the relentless nature of modern cyber threats.

“It’s actually frightening how frequently your public servers or public-facing internet infrastructure is being probed,” he said.

“It’s happening constantly. Sometimes it’s like ten times a minute. Sometimes it’s hundreds of times a minute.”

He emphasised that empathy is critical when responding to incidents.

“You’re working with a victim of crime.”

“As a cyber security professional, it’s important to be rational and measured in your response.”

“When businesses approach us for help, we’re seeing a wide range of behaviours.”

“Some people are having the worst day of their life,” said O’Kane.

For responders, he said the core of every case should be grounded in professionalism, empathy, and recognised international standards.