FinTechWeek Vienna 2024
FinTechWeek Vienna stands as an essential communication hub, designed to bridge the gap between innovative FinTech startups, established banking institutions, and regulatory bodies. This collaboration is dedicated to fostering a deep, mutual understanding across sectors. Each year, FinTechWeek features a rich variety of engaging events, from high-caliber panel discussions to insightful presentations and compelling keynote speeches. The program covers a broad spectrum of topics, including financial literacy, the future of payments, cybersecurity updates, and the latest developments in FinTech, PropTech, blockchain, and securities. The 2024 opening session, themed ‘Cybersecurity in the Age of AI,’ highlighted Prof. Matteo Maffei as a keynote speaker, emphasizing his expertise in addressing critical issues within the industry.
In his presentation “Cybersecurity and AI: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly,” Prof. Maffei discussed the interaction between AI and cybersecurity, pointing out both its strengths and weaknesses. He referenced ongoing research under CySec, explaining how machine learning is applied in cybersecurity and highlighted key challenges such as sampling bias, inaccuracies in labeling, and data snooping which introduce hidden biases. Maffei explained that these issues could lead to models forming false connections and biases if influenced by the test data. He also noted the lack of robust baseline methods and appropriate measures for evaluating systems in scenarios with imbalanced data or where low false-positive rates are critical. He mentioned that often, the real-world use and possible security risks are not fully considered when these systems are evaluated, which can leave them open to vulnerabilities.
Maffei emphasized the urgent need for thorough and realistic development and evaluation methods, which are key focuses of CySec’s team’s current and future research. Their work includes advancing blockchain technologies, creating smart contract verifiers, theorem provers, and enhancing web and mobile security. Collaboration with the industry, comprehensive training for the new generation, and outreach initiatives that reach everyone from children to the youth demonstrate their commitment to widespread and significant impact.
