Summit is stirring – business is starting to understand the need for cyber security

 

The Business Design Centre in London – which was the venue for the Cyber Security Summit and Expo

C3IA Solutions, the Dorset-based cyber security company, attended the annual Cyber Security Summit and Expo in London with its subsidiary GoSecure (UK).

The event was held at the Business Design Centre and attracted several thousand delegates.

The GoSecure team

GoSecure was one of the exhibitors and noted a huge increase in numbers from the previous year.

This shows how the cyber sector is growing and demonstrates that businesses are becoming more aware of the need to take seriously the threat of cyber-attacks and associated risks.

C3IA Solutions is helping more and more SMEs with their Cyber Essentials certification and this subject was reflected at the event with a great deal of emphasis on it.

Cyber Essentials is a very affordable and easy-to-obtain certification, and going forward SMEs will need it to win contracts with the government and its agencies.

Furthermore, multi-nationals and big business is also increasingly demanding that contractors have this certification.

It provides a level of real protection that could save a business huge amounts of time, money and embarrassment.

Other predictable themes at the event included GDPR – the legislation that comes into law next year and effectively replaces the Data Protection Act.

Fines for failure to comply are eye-watering and C3IA Solutions is also busy preparing clients so they are ready.

At GoSecure’s stand there was much interest in its services that literally provide an all-seeing eye over clients’ networks.

 

Peter Villiers of GoSecure

A bank of highly-skilled operatives ensures a human is watching what is going on 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

While technology can do amazing things, humans can still spot threats and patterns that computer programmes can’t.

Interestingly, a talk at the summit by Professor Tim Watson, director of the cyber security centre at the University of Warwick, confirmed how the intelligence of humans can still outsmart technology and that technology’s programmers – by thinking outside the box.

 

Professor Tim Watson

He gave several examples of how Artificial Intelligence was easily thwarted by a human thinking in imaginative ways. It is this imagination – inherent within GoSecure’s human specialists – that helps set the company apart from competitors.

Delegates who spoke to the GoSecure staff were interested and reassured that their cyber service provides ‘real’ people every second of the day – as well as the associated and necessary technology.

Its Advanced Adversary Protection offering goes beyond simple ‘security incident alerting’ by taking a direct and active role in both detection of advanced threats and in mitigation of active compromises as they occur.

Other themes of this year’s summit included cloud technology and associated services, existing and new threats, Bitcoin and bots.

There were plenty of seminars during the event, but the most popular was that given by GoSecure’s Noel Hannan.

 

Noel Hannan of GoSecure starts his seminar

It was titled ‘24 hours in a cyber-attack’ and took the delegates through a ‘cyber situation’.

There was standing room only for the presentation, which is one that Noel is willing to give to others interested in the subject.

 

There was standing room only for Noel Hannan’s seminar

 

Sausages were on the menu during Noel Hannan’s presentation

The National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) was also in attendance – C3IA Solutions was one of the very first companies to be certified by it following its creation.

Other government agencies were also attending and it again proved just how important this sector has become.

A century ago we were fighting a world war in trenches using pigeons to convey messages. Interception of these birds and interception of other types of communications was vital.

Ways of communicating have changed, but protecting these communications remains a priority for all who take seriously their security.

The summit and expo, which is returning next year, was a valuable source of leads for GoSecure – but the day was too much for one delegate.

Cyber snooze