NAA Event Review: Cyber Resilience webinar
Our most recent webinar last month covered a particularly relevant topic for our sector currently – Cyber Resilience.
We hosted Niomie Haynes, Cyber Resilience Manager at the North West Cyber Resilience Centre (NWCRC), which supports businesses across the North West in building cyber resilience. The NWCRC is a police-led, not-for-profit partnership, providing affordable, professional cyber security services to small businesses. It has the sole objective of reducing cybercrime against businesses in today’s digital world across all sectors and is part of a wider national network of cyber resilience centres.
With a background in fraud prevention and cyber security, Niomie understands the complex challenges of protecting businesses against criminals, which in-turn, allowed attendees to gain an understanding of how to build cyber resilience in manufacturing, minimise downtime, protect production, manage cyber risk, and implement proactive cybersecurity steps to future-proof their operations.
Niomie began by explaining why the automotive sector is at risk, with key reasons including:
• Digitisation of the sector
• Failure to keep up with emerging threats.
• Supply chain cyber resilience
• Legacy Systems
Potential impacts on businesses were then explored and include:
• Financial loss
• Data loss
• Business disruption
• Loss of business
What are typically the biggest threats were then highlighted and include:
• Phishing
• Social media takeovers
• Ransomware
• Fraud and impersonation
Attendees were then given an overview of steps that can be taken to protect their respective businesses by being proactive as opposed to reactive, and focusing on “if we get breached” as opposed to “when we get breached,” with key steps including:
• Developing robust incident response plans
• Creating resilience, not just prevention
In summary, starting early, thinking holistically, and treating security as an integral part of any business strategy, not an afterthought.
Niomie then went on to explain how the NWCRC can help, including:
• Free support for small and medium organisations
• Long term support and guidance to build resilience
• Access to cyber security resources and templates
• Regular blogs and threat intelligence updates
Finally, attendees also learnt that NWCRC Security Services’ offering includes:
• Cyber risk exposure assessment
• Security awareness training
• Network and website vulnerability assessments
• Senior leadership workshops
• Security awareness training for staff
• Support with National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) tools such as cyber assessment framework and cyber action toolkit
• Cyber essentials support and signposting
Copies of the presentation slides and webinar recording are available on request.
