Over the last 25 years, the Internet has evolved from small-scale exchanges between defence organisations to a global vehicle for communications, service delivery, commerce, and marketing. Cyber security has paralleled this growth. It has evolved from one-upmanship between geeks to a global problem involving organised crime, fraud, extortion, theft, state-sponsored espionage, cyber-warfare, and a free-for-all for hobbyists, stalkers, terrorists, and hacktivists.

For many organisations – banks, trading houses, brokers, lawyers, on-line retailers and governments – it is now the dominant business risk. But many –mostly outside the FTSE250 – have not yet addressed the issue in full. There is increasing regulatory pressure on boards to respond and in November 2016, the UK Government announced a £1.9 billion National Cyber Programme. It mandated that all its suppliers meet the Cyber Essentials standard. There is also now an emerging cyber-insurance market that is driving quantification of risk and requiring clients to implement much stronger measures before they can be insured.

This Breakfast Briefing, led by a cyber security company CEO, will give an overview of cyber-crime and prevention measures before looking at the mind-set of the hacker and using this, rather than just technical measures, to design more effective prevention.

Speaker

Stuart Bladen studied Engineering at Oxford University and joined the nuclear industry where he qualified as a Chartered Engineer. He then finished an MBA at London Business School before joining PricewaterhouseCoopers where he advised utility companies and implemented large-scale computer systems for military logistics and government procurement.

Stuart Bladen was appointed CEO of Falanx Group Ltd* in October 2016. But previously has held senior positions at Hewlett Packard, Hitachi and Unisys among others.

*Falanx Group Limited (ticker: FLX) is an AIM-listed cyber security and intelligence provider based in London, United Kingdom. They are a world-leading team of security professionals and technology experts who work in close partnership with blue chip and government clients to help them defend against a wide range of global security threats.