Annual Cyber Lecture: ransomware and the evolution of the cyber threat - from data protection to resilience

Event information

According to the UK Home Office, ransomware is considered the greatest of all serious and organised cybercrime threats, and the largest cyber security threat.

Many public and private sector organisations have faced ransomware attacks over the last few years, including the high-profile attack on M&S in late April which left the retailer unable to resume normal operations for several months.

These attacks demonstrate the continued shift from pure data exfiltration towards interruption of services and soliciting of payment.

Join this evening lecture to hear from representatives from the UK’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) and the UK Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) as they discuss the evolving ransomware threat, and the government’s plans for improving resilience across the UK economy.

NCSC will provide practical insights based on its experience helping business recover from ransomware attacks, and DSIT will discuss the ransomware legislative proposals, which include targeted bans on payment of ransomware by public sector and national critical infrastructure organisations, as well as an enhanced incident reporting regime. They will also explore the proposed measures in the Cyber Security and Resilience Bill expected to be laid before parliament later this year.  

Key benefits

• Understand how the cyber security landscape and ransomware attacks are evolving.
• Gain practical insights and learn from the experiences of other organisations who have experienced ransomware attacks.
• Understand what the government's ransomware legislative proposals and Cyber Security and Resilience Bill mean for your organisation.

About the speakers

	Irfan Hemani, Deputy Director for Cyber Security, Department for Science, Innovation and Technology Irfan is responsible for secure technology and national cyber resilience policy as part of the UK's National Cyber strategy. He is also the author of the Harvard Belfer Center's National Cyber Power Index. He previously worked in Deloitte's Technology Risk Advisory team.
	Esther Mallowah, Head of Tech Policy, ICAEW Esther is responsible for thought leadership and influencing technology policy to enable businesses, accountants and society to benefit from technology while limiting its harm. Her current areas of focus are Cyber Security and AI. She has a background in technology external and internal audit and consulting having worked at the Big 4 and in various financial services organisations. Her knowledge and experience straddle technology and accounting as she is both a trained software engineer and an ICAEW Chartered Accountant.
	Cub Llewelyn-Davies, Senior National Resilience Lead, National Cyber Security Centre Cub has been at the National Cyber Security Centre, a part of GCHQ, since 2017. His roles have included building resilience across civil society and developing the inaugural citizen resilience programme following the unprecedented shift to home working at the start of the pandemic, before being seconded to Whitehall to provide advice to Ministers and Senior Civil Servants on digital, cyber and national security policy issues. Cub now leads a team focussed on improving how cyber risk is embedded within organisations existing business strategy and governance mechanisms in order to raise national resilience.

CPD hours

ICAEW's revised Continuing Professional Development (CPD) Regulations bring in new CPD requirements. This includes a minimum number of hours and an ethics requirement. Attending this webinar could contribute up to 1.5 hours of verifiable CPD, providing you can demonstrate that the content is relevant to your role.

A copy of the webinar booking confirmation email is accepted as evidence of verifiable CPD. You will need to save the email as a JPEG or PDF before uploading it to your record. Click here to use ICAEW’s self-assessment tool to help you work out how much CPD you will need to fulfil each year.

Costs

ICAEW members and non-members are welcome to join.