roundtable


The Business Magazine and with Complete IT hosted this roundtable discussion at the Royal Berkshire Conference Centre at Reading’s Madejski Stadium. Tim Wickham reports on …


Data security and recovery Participants


Will Richmond-Coggan: Partner, Pitmans Law


Dr Guy Bunker: SVP products and marketing, Clearswift Gavin Davis: Director, BDO


Amanda Melton: Partner, IBB Solicitors


Chris Tate: Business development director, Datto


Paul Ridley: Sales and operations director, Orion Electrotech


The Roundtable team


Matt Riley: General manager, Complete IT


Peter Laurie: Head of client relations, The Business Magazine


Colin Blumenthal began by outlining the main topics for the wide-ranging discussion on security, prevention, recovery, approaches to cloud services and, inevitably, GDPR.


What pro-active measures do you take to minimise the risk of a cyber attack?


Clearswift’s services focus on email and web security, as well as data loss prevention. Dr Guy Bunker, senior vice president products and marketing, said: “The first thing to remember is that it’s not just about technology, it’s also about people and process. Technology should be seen as the enforcement of process, the back-up for keeping people and data safe – and that includes your staff and customers. You can throw money at IT, but unless you understand what you are trying to protect then there won’t be any upside to your risk measures.”


Amanda Melton, a partner at solicitors IBB, agreed that cyber security has to be considered a people issue. “It’s about training your staff and making sure your managers know about cyber


18 businessmag.co.uk


security. You have to spread the message and make sure everyone in the business understands their personal responsibilities for protecting data.”


The people dimension includes a focus on awareness and company culture, thought Will Richmond- Coggan, partner at Pitmans Law. “If you have a cyber attack you don’t want employees clicking on a suspect link or downloading something nasty. And you don’t want them keeping quiet if they do for fear of being disciplined. There is usually a critical moment in a cyber attack when things can be pulled back, but only if the right people further up the chain are told quickly enough so they can take action.”


You always need to be prepared for the worst, advised Gavin Davis, director at accountants BDO, who heads up its IT consultancy and offers advice and guidance to mid-market organisations. “On a daily basis, companies don’t think they are going to be the target of a malware attack or a data breach. If you are unprepared, when it hits, it hits bad. Organisations


Colin Blumenthal: Managing director, Complete IT, chaired the discussion


should always be aware that it could happen to them.”


Orion goes one step further by accepting that an attack is going to happen. Sales and operations director Paul Ridley heads his company’s GDPR regulations and commented: “We are wary of every email that comes in. You have to get smart, for example, with fake emails that appear to have been sent from someone else in the business.”


Matt Riley commented that there are two types of companies, those that have been hacked and those that are going to be.


Chris Tate is business development director at Datto, which provides SMEs with business continuity, back-up and networking solutions. He said: “User training and education is a key point. There is a host of companies offering training on cyber attacks, phishing and fake


THE BUSINESS MAGAZINE – MAY/JUNE 2018


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