00:02Catherine, c'est bon de voir vous.
00:05Let's check in with you.
00:06What are you following this morning?
00:08Thanks, Eptin.
00:10Great to see you.
00:10I'm having a fireside chat with Hugues Foulon,
00:15who is CEO of Orange Cyber Defense.
00:18The French communications company Orange
00:21has made cybersecurity a strategic priority.
00:24They're recognizing evolving threats in the digital landscape
00:28and aiming to protect their networks, infrastructure,
00:31and, of course, their customers from cyberattacks,
00:35which we all hear so much about, don't we?
00:37Hugues Foulon, thank you very much for being with us.
00:39Hello.
00:39Great to meet you.
00:40Now, first off, let's just start with a question about you yourself.
00:43Could you name a characteristic of yours that got you to where you are today?
00:48So this is something which is not differentiated,
00:52but I like challenges.
00:53So in sport, in my family, in the business,
00:56and to become the European leader in cybersecurity
01:00is quite a challenge for us.
01:02It certainly is.
01:04I mean, cybersecurity, it just encompasses so many different things, doesn't it?
01:08If we just talk about some current cyber threats
01:11that might be targeting the general public,
01:14if you could tell us about a couple of those,
01:16and also how Orange Group is protecting customers from those cyberattacks.
01:20Yes, we all know, we all need to understand that the threat is here.
01:24This is not in the movies, in the books.
01:26It's on the field.
01:28And the fact that what's happening in Ukraine since February 22
01:32is a good illustration of this kind of new war.
01:37And you are talking about the threat.
01:39So for everyone, of course, phishing initiative
01:42and everything you can receive in your inbox could be a threat.
01:47And the quality of the threat is evolving, unfortunately, for us in the good way.
01:55So it's very difficult to differentiate an attack from a real serious male.
02:00It really is, actually.
02:01And we get so many of them as well.
02:03It's perfect. Logos, the colors are perfect.
02:06So it's more and more difficult.
02:08And, of course, we are at the middle of the era of ransomware
02:13for big, medium, and even small companies.
02:16And we can see within Orange Cyber Defense that it can affect everyone
02:20and with quite dramatic consequences when it happens.
02:24Absolutely.
02:25Yes, as you said, businesses, individuals, even hospital systems
02:28have been victims of ransomware.
02:31And this sort of hyper-digital world that we live in today,
02:35it is evolving so rapidly.
02:38You said you like a challenge.
02:39If you could pick out some of the key challenges that you're facing
02:43to try and ensure effective cyber defense.
02:46So maybe three items to keep in mind.
02:49So my main challenge, my daily challenge every morning is to think about talents.
02:55How to attract talents, how to train them, how to keep them.
03:01And so we have, in France, but not only in France, in every European country
03:06where we are present, the same challenge to attract talents.
03:10And young people choose cybersecurity as a good activity.
03:15So when you choose cyber industry, you don't have any issue about finding a job,
03:22have a good package.
03:23So this is very interesting for them.
03:26The second topic is maybe about information and training.
03:30So make people aware that cybersecurity is not anymore a subject for cyber experts,
03:36but for everyone.
03:37So it can happen.
03:38It can affect you in your family, at your job.
03:43So it's something which is very serious.
03:44And despite all the good things of the digital transformation,
03:51you have a flip side, which is cybersecurity threat.
03:54And the last thing maybe which is important for me, it's about innovation.
03:59So we are speaking a lot about general TVI at this stage.
04:04What does it change for the cyber industry?
04:05It will change things.
04:07It will lower the entry barrier for attackers.
04:11So we will see consequences on this.
04:14And this is the third challenge I have in mind.
04:17And of course, Orange is not the only entity working on these challenges.
04:23How does Orange Group work with other entities, other industry partners,
04:29government agencies to address these cyber threats?
04:32So like in the global IT industry, cybersecurity industry is highly fragmented
04:37with a lot of competitions.
04:39So we need to partner and to combine joint forces
04:43to make us more efficient.
04:45And that is what we are doing with vendors and partners.
04:49So we are choosing European, French, but mostly US and Israeli solutions
04:54to make the cyber protection effective.
04:59So we are very used to do so.
05:02We also are able to partner with customers.
05:07Like you mentioned, the public part of our administration,
05:13armies, police, hospitals.
05:18So every kind of, in different countries where we are,
05:20we are able to partner and to, and we just announced yesterday
05:24about the Software Republic with Renault,
05:29the fact that we are investing a lot to cyber protect vehicles,
05:34next generation of vehicles,
05:35because they will be highly connected to every kind of network.
05:38So we need to protect them.
05:40And this is all cyber defense who work on this kind of project.
05:44So this is a different kind of partnership,
05:47which are very important for us.
05:48It's absolutely vast.
05:50I'm very glad to hear that you do enjoy a challenge.
05:53Foulon, thank you so much for talking to us here on Viva Tech News.
05:55Thank you very much.
05:56And I'll send it back to you in the studio.
06:00Wonderful interview.
06:01Absolutely fascinating.
06:02Thanks so much for that.
06:03You're watching Viva Tech News.
06:05Let's get out back to the main action floor.
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