Insight

As 2020 concluded, it was widely accepted that remote working was here to stay. In fact, 60% of the UK workforce have transferred to a remote model during the first lockdown, and the trend will likely continue long after the pandemic as workers come to expect more flexibility from their employers. However, while this may prompt office workers around the world to celebrate the death of the morning commute, there is a darker side to remote working. According...

In recent times, there has been a huge increase in the number of fraudsters maliciously scamming businesses of all shapes and sizes – and even their crimes seem more sophisticated. Throughout the Coronavirus outbreak, as many migrated their businesses online, the increase in fraudulence and general cyber-crime become a large cause for concern, and payroll fraud wasn’t an exception. Payroll fraud is certainly costly and, on average, UK businesses lose a total of £12 billion...

This is a reminder I get every day when I interact with people from the cybersecurity fraternity, most of whom say that they landed a career in cybersecurity purely by chance.   I recently made a LinkedIn post asking people to share their stories about how they happened to become cybersecurity professionals. The responses that followed validated the same sentiment mentioned above—a career in cybersecurity is more of a chance than a choice. People study...

Cloud native technologies have the potential to truly change the way we access and secure applications, but the success of this relies on the people and processes in place to handle the roll out of these technologies. This requires appropriate leadership, and decision makers within an organisation who demonstrate robust cloud security leadership are more likely to see this filter down throughout the business. The main priority for CISOs should then be to develop and...

You may remember studying the 1920s in school through History, or reading The Great Gatsby. A time of prosperity, culture and celebration, it’s easy to see why we’ve come to dub that period The Roaring Twenties. In contrast, in light of our current global circumstance, it’s safe to say that the most recent twenties haven’t started roaring just yet. In fact, I believe our twenties will be quite the opposite. After we just finished our...

The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated years of change in just eight months, particularly in the way companies across the globe conduct business. Specifically, it has driven an unprecedented number of people online, to shop and perform numerous transactions which they can no longer do in person - and companies and industries, including retail, have responded in turn. There is no doubt retail has been one of the sectors most disrupted by the pandemic. As the...

The pandemic’s effect on our relationship with technology is a profound one. Lockdown ushered in a sudden and wide-spread adoption of remote working, and the uncertainty brought with it a slew of opportunist cybercriminals. The result of this rapid rate of change highlighted that the UK’s already glaring tech skills gap has been stretched to the extreme. Currently, nine in 10 (88%) organisations admit they have a significant shortage of digital skills which is negatively...

It may have had a negative impact on the UK economy, but COVID-19 doesn’t appear to have dampened enthusiasm for Christmas shopping. More than 70 percent of consumers intend to spend at least as much on presents this year as they have in the past. But, while this may be good news for embattled retailers, it’s even better news for opportunistic cybercriminals. With lockdown measures forcing consumers online, ecommerce has never been so popular -...

The global race for Artificial Intelligence (AI) is on. The European Commission (EC) has developed an ambitious AI strategy and its implementation will require member states to join forces. Yet in the face of a pandemic, fractures among states have appeared to only be widening. What is at stake for Europe and how could it achieve a pole position?  What is at stake? While the international community hasn’t yet agreed a universal definition of the...

Booking.com and Expedia recently made the headlines – and not because of the hotel deals they were offering as people eased out of lockdown.  Instead, it had been discovered that one of their software providers had not stored sensitive data correctly, running the risk that the details of millions of hotel customers could have been exposed. Around the same time, Ticketmaster UK was fined £1.25 million following a cyber attack in 2018 which flagged that...