Foreword from our CEO

Foreword from our CEO

Welcome to our July 2021 edition of ‘What the Hack?’ Since our last quarterly issue in April 2021, so much as has happened in the cyber security industry, and it just goes to show how fast the pace is in our industry.

In the first half of 2021 we have seen initial public offerings from KnowBe4 and Dark Trace, demonstrating that there is a healthy pipeline of cyber security technologies ripe for IPO. We have also seen a spike in M&A activity, such as the acquisition of Forcepoint by global investment firm Fransico Partners. This hiatus of acquisitions is a clear indication of the interest and value in our industry.

Despite such positive activity, organisations are unfortunately still being hit by cyber attacks, notably the high-profile attacks of meat supplier JBS, gaming giant EA Sports, and the attack on the Colonial Pipeline. When speaking with our Security Advisors and Security Operations teams about these attacks, there is a common set of themes that come out time and time again.

As an industry, until we have collectively addressed the basics, such as providing user awareness training, consistently patching applications and operating systems, ensuring all installed security technologies are configured properly, and monitoring traffic for anomalies with the readiness to quickly respond, I fear we will see more and more successful attacks. However, from a ‘local’ perspective, I am encouraged to see UK organisations taking the security of their estate more seriously than ever, as demonstrated by the number of recent engagements we have seen at Secon Cyber.

In this edition of ‘What The Hack?’ we have been speaking to some of the leaders in our industry to get their perspective on how they are addressing the challenge of cyber. We are privileged to hear from Gerry Grant, Cyber Security Manager at NHS Tayside, who shares his wisdom of how to secure such a large and complex organisation. Also, Lisa Lorenzin, Senior Director of Transformation Strategy at Zscaler, explains why now is the right time to implement a zero-trust strategy. And we speak to Rahul Powar, CEO of Red Sift, who tells us why most CISOs would rate business email compromise amongst their top concerns but are unaware of what they need to do to solve this issue.

I hope you enjoy this edition of ‘What the Hack?’ and on behalf of the Secon Cyber team, we wish you an enjoyable summer.

Robert Gupta, Chief Executive Officer