Storms, Streets and Students...

Well, the weather may have taken a turn for the worse after an unseasonably warm October, but thankfully, Storm Ciaran didn't wreak as much havoc in London as expected. The unpredictable weather is an occupational hazard at this time of year, although it takes a lot more than a bit of wind and rain to stop our Community Outreach team.

Enough about the weather, onto last week's highlights from the CRC for London:

On Monday, we started to think about the evolution of our Community Outreach programme at our weekly team meeting. We’ve obviously only just scratched the surface in our first 12 months, but we’re beginning to get some really good data that is helping us understand how businesses in different parts of London react to cyber risk which will ultimately help us develop a more intelligence-led approach in the future. We'll be producing a report in January with our findings.

Hannah held a ‘Mentoring Monday’ with businesses she met the previous week at the Small Business Research and Enterprise Centre (SBREC) event, while I met with Plexal to discuss potential opportunities for collaboration. Plexal are a fascinating organisation who deliver a number of initiatives on behalf of NCSC and run several incubator / accelerator programmes for cyber security start-ups. There’s definitely some common ground and exciting things we can do together to help SMEs across London.

Also on Monday, Hannah and I reviewed CVs from students on Birkbeck University’s Ability programme (we’ll be recruiting two students on short-term placements at the Centre - funded 100% by the Ian Karten Trust). We're really proud to support this brilliant initiative having taken two students on placements earlier in the year who were both truly outstanding.

On Tuesday, I had a really good discussion with MoPAC about our longer term plans for the Centre and the opportunity to work more closely with other parts of City Hall, while Hannah attended the Tech City Placement and Internship Forum at City, University of London.

On Wednesday, I attended an event at the House of Lords which included some fascinating sessions on DDoS attacks which gave a really interesting insight into the (growing) scale of the problem and the increasing impact it was having on SMEs. The event was also a great opportunity to network with senior business leaders and promote the work of the Centre.

In the afternoon, I attended the monthly CRC Directors Council where we heard updates on the positive progress being made towards the new CRM system and the onboarding of the new national marketing agency. I then joined Abdullah from the Cyber PATH programme to give a presentation to potential applicants for this year’s cohort. We had 41 on the call from various Universities across London, which was a really impressive turnout. We also had one of our current Cyber PATH students, Muhibur, share his experience of his first year on the programme. He's been brilliant for us and clearly has a very bright future in the industry. The deadline for applications this year is the 14th November. If you are interested in applying (or just want to find out more), please visit the Cyber PATH website: https://nationalcrcgroup.co.uk/cyber-path/

Incidentally, Muhibur joins the Centre this week as a volunteer, supporting our Community Outreach programme. We're delighted to welcome him onboard.

Hannah also delivered a webinar with the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW). Again, another really well attended event in a sector that has been a key target for cyber criminals.

On Thursday, we had a Community Outreach event in Waterloo with the We Are Waterloo BID. The area around the station is growing rapidly, but retains much of its Georgian charm. The weather probably couldn’t have been much worse, but a special shout-out to Hannah and Aden who braved the driving rain and howling wind to visit businesses in the Lower Marsh Market area (the new CRC jackets look great).

Also on Thursday, I joined Francis West and the Association of British Insurers for a webinar about the importance of cyber insurance for SMEs. Very few businesses have a dedicated cyber insurance policy in place, yet it provides access to expert help and support in the event of a breach or an attack.

However, the webinar was best remembered for a special guest - Magician Martin Rees, 5 times Guinness World Record holder. He was there to show how easy it was to manipulate people’s minds (much in the same way a social engineer works). Naturally, I was chosen as his victim. He asked me to think of a card and say it repeatedly in my head (I chose the Jack of Diamonds). Just before he was about to tell me my card, he asked whether I wanted change it and although I was still saying the Jack of Diamonds in my head, the 3 of Clubs suddenly popped into my mind. So I changed it. Not only did he guess it correctly, but he had a tattoo of the 3 of clubs on the inside of his finger. I’m going to rewatch the recording to see if I can pick up on the subliminal messaging, but it just goes to show how it can be done. ?

In the evening, I attended an event at University College London alongside the Head of Cyber Security at DCMS to talk to students about careers in cyber. I was there to talk about my own career while promoting Cyber PATH, the Cyber and Digital Specials and Volunteer (CDSV) scheme on behalf of NPCC and the Code First Bursary offered by the NCSC. A great turnout and lots of brilliant questions. Hopefully I’ve encouraged a few of them to sign up.

Finally last week, (Friday), Hannah and I met with Kingston University who are doing some really exciting things in the west of London. They've asked us to attend one of their ‘Beyond the Curriculum’ events early next year which is aimed at helping students understand what career options are available to them upon completion of their studies.

Friday also marked the launch of our new website. Our Marketing Manager Tierney has done a cracking job on simplifying the user journey. There’s still some more work to be done over the next few days, but it’s certainly got more of a London feel than our old one.

Looking ahead to this week…

On Monday, we welcome Alberta back officially. Tierney and I will be having the first of several discovery meetings with the recently appointed national marketing agency. I also have a meeting with a company I met at the House of Lords event last week who specialise in finding grants for SMEs. We think there’s a great opportunity to collaborate and are planning on running a few events in early 2024. Hannah will be delivering another one of her Mentoring Monday sessions.

On Tuesday, I’ll be at the SASIG event (Where Cyber Meets Crime). I'll be a panellist talking about the effectiveness of public information campaigns. The Community Outreach team will be doing the first in a series of events with the Fleet Street Quarter BID and City of London Police. The BID area is known locally as the ‘justice quarter’ and is where the new City of London Police HQ is being built. We’ll also be doing a Digital Security Clinic and delivering a Security Awareness Training session through our Cyber PATH students.

On Wednesday, I’ll be having a catch-up with Edafe, who runs our Volunteering and Outreach workstream to discuss progress and timescales for next steps. I’ve also got a meeting with Gov Net to discuss the Cyber Security and Data Protection Conference which takes place the following week. I’m Chairing the event this year which promises to be another great opportunity to promote what we do.

Then finally on Thursday, we have another Community Outreach event in Fleet Street. We'll be out in force with some of our volunteers joining us.?

We're nearly at the business end of the year as we get closer to Christmas. Look out for our Christmas campaign which we'll be launching next month.

...let's hope the weather holds for this week!

Simon