Security Insights

In this episode we welcome back the Cyber Agony Aunts, Amelia Hewitt and Rebecca Taylor. As the UK's Cybersecurity and Resilience Bill works its way through Parliament, has the debate about cyber resilience changed? What does a resilient organisation look like? And above all, how do we create one, without putting cybersecurity professionals under extreme pressure? As Amelia and Rebecca explain in their second book, Resilient You, we need to take control of our own resilience and wellbeing, even as we try to build those more robust operations.

In the first episode of Series 7 of Security Insights,we welcome back Charl van der Walt, head of security research at Orange Cyber Defense. We discuss the key findings of his team's 2026 Security Navigator report, how AI is tipping the balance of power in favour of malicious actors, and why resilience and agility should be on the CISO's agenda for this year.

Cybersecurity is changing its focus. Increasingly, it is less about defence and more about resilience. Organisations have to be able to withstand and recover from an attack. It's no longer about preventing breaches: the sheer volume of cyberattacks means that is no longer possible. Instead, security teams and boards should assume an attack will happen, prepare keep the organisation operating during an incident, and aim to recover as quickly as possible. Our guest is James Blake, VP of global cyber resilency strategy and consulting services at Cohesity. He argues that this means integrating business continuity and disaster recovery with cybersecurity. And organisations should rehearse for cyber incidents, training staff to operate under what can be extreme pressure. A good playbook, Blake suggests, is not enough. Interview by Stephen Pritchard.

Critical infrastructure is on the front line of the war in Ukraine. And as the conflict approaches its fourth year, there is little sign of that changing. Strikes against infrastructure, though, are only part of the picture. Since Russia’s full-scale invasion, and even before, Ukraine’s defenders have waged an equally intense, but less visible, cyber war. What lessons can we draw from Ukraine’s experience? And how can states and businesses protect their critical national infrastructure during war and conflict? And how do the public and private sector deal with the prospect of both kinetic and cyber threats? We discuss this with Mihoko Matsubara, author, associate fellow at the International Institute of Strategic Studies and chief cybersecurity strategist at NTT Corporation.

DDoS – or distributed denial of service attacks – remain a serious source of disruption across the internet. DDoS attacks continue to grow in their frequency and volume. And increasingly, they’re aligned to geopolitical events. A driver is sites offering “DDoS for hire”. The groups behind these sites even offer DDoS as a service attacks for free. But cybercrime groups are making use of AI too. This is leading to what researchers at NETSCOUT describe as a “digital battlefield", with DDoS attacks overwhelming underprepared defenders. Our guest is Richard Hummel, director of threat intelligence at NETSCOUT.

Education is increasingly in the crosshairs for malicous actors. Along with other public sector bodies, schools, colleges and universities are being targeted for the information they hold, as well as for extortion and ransom. What, then, can leaders in the sector do to bolster their defences, especially when budgets are under pressure? Our guest is Joe Rooke, director of risk insights at Recorded Future’s Insikt Group.

More than three quarters of security breaches result from human behaviour. But as an industry, we focus far more on technical security measures, than on the human element. Human risk management sets out to change this. Its proponents aruge that by measuring what people do on networks and systems, we create a much clearer picture of risk. In fact, they say, the risks posed by people should be on the business' risk register. And it's only with that picture that we can implement the controls, and measures such as security awareness and training. But human risk management goes far beyond anti-phishing campaigns. Our guest is Ashley Rose, co-founder and CEO of Living Security. With a background in both marketing and psychology, she’s setting out to help organisations move away from focusing on devices, and to a human-centric view of security.

Non-human identities now vastly outnumber human actors on the internet, perhaps by as many as 50 to one. APIs, online devices and service calls now dominate internet traffic, and access requests. And this is only set to increase, with the rise of AI and AI agents. Could we even see "robot wars" as AI agents take on AI defenders? A lack of visibility, and a lack of control over machine identities is not just putting systems and networks at risk. It is changing the whole concept of identity. Now, it's no longer a question of who has access to our systems and data, but what. And the consequences for cybersecurity are far reaching. Our guest is Art Gilliland, CEO at Delinea. Interview by Stephen Pritchard