Cyber Security and you: a Connect Gazelles seminar hosted by aql

Dr Adam Beaumont, aql CEO and founder, Paul Brady, IT Risk Assurance Senior Manager at PwC and Matthew Hattersley, Head of Commercial and IT Law at Clarion joined the Connect Gazelles panel on Tuesday 26th of January to discuss cyber security and impact to the business world. Connect Gazelles’ CEO, Nick Butler chaired the panel.

Dr Adam Beaumont highlighted the risks of current cyber security threats and said “It is 10.000 cheaper to attack a company than to defend one.” He also talked about security best practices for UK businesses, and the Cyber-security Information Sharing Partnership (CiSP), a Cert-UK initiative, sharing cyber threat and vulnerability information.

Paul Brady shared information from the soon to be published in the UK Information Security Breaches Survey. He emphasized the importance of security policies for mobile devices, especially when employees are accessing corporate data. The survey also shows that an SME would require a budget of £75.000 – £300.000 to recover from a security breach, including campaigns to retain customers and repair the company’s reputation.

The last speaker, Matthew Hattersley addressed cyber security from a regulation point of view. He said that the data protection law is very heterogeneous across the EU and that soon to come regulations are aiming to bring each country’s legislation to a more consistent level. He also talked about cyber security obligations and how the new data protection act will impact businesses and corporations.