Bruce Heck

I was privileged to be present at the first UK Cyber Flywheel event last week, focused on supporting UK cyber startups to becoming major market players. Many of the early stage companies also present spoke of the importance of their design partners and how that collaboration was key to them refining their use cases and developing real solutions. I've been fortunate to find many friendly and, most importantly, critical people willing to engage early on in the design of Huntbase. Many of us find this process difficult when focusing on UK businesses as partners. Startups need honest feedback and enterprises need their fresh thinking. It should be a symbiotic thing. In order to create more impact through innovation we need more leaders, including CISOs, willing to take a meeting, share a problem, and test a solution. If you're sitting on a challenge that your current stack can't solve, reach out to the UK startup ecosystem through organisations and events like UK Cyber Flywheel's. If you're a founder with a solution looking for more real-world validation, don't wait for the perfect intro, make the ask, then keep asking till you find the right partners. Thanks again to Alastair Paterson and the team at Harmonic Security as well as the founders, speakers, and organisers. It was a lot of fun and hopefully first of many to come. David Read Nate Dunning Grace Cassy Ollie Whitehouse Joshua Walter Paul Wilkes Neil Stinchcombe James Patrick-Evans Charlie Banyard Francois Ruether Dave Palmer James Hadley Ben Dewar-Powell Simon Goldsmith Mark Sutton Wayne Horkan Saj Huq

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Day 1/31 “When Innocence Was Exploited” Kido International - 2025 A cyber-attack hit an institution built on care, where trust is everything. Few days ago, a criminal group calling itself Radiant claimed to have breached Kido International (A nursery chain with 18 UK sites and additional sites overseas). The group reportedly stole personal information of about 8000 children. The attackers published profiles of 20 children on a darknet leak site, and private data of employees. They contacted some parents and carers, threatening to post more information, unless Kido pays a ransom. The stolen data includes children’s names, photographs, DOBs, home addresses etc. Multiple reports indicate the breach involved third-party systems. Community Challenge The attackers claimed they "deserve to be compensated for their pentest” Was this truly a penetration test? Explain why or why not.

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🚨 Marks & Spencer, Co-Op, Harrods and as of yesterday, Jaguar Land Rover. In just the past few months, several iconic brands have reported cyber incidents. Sadly, they’re not alone, an increasing number of UK businesses faced cyber incidents. But here’s the real question: 👉 Are organisations learning from these attacks, or are we doomed to repeat the same mistakes? In our research, we systematically reviewed global studies on how companies actually learn from incidents. The findings suggest that: ➡️ Learning is, indeed, recommended by every standard and framework. ➡️ But in practice, it’s often superficial: causes aren’t deeply investigated, lessons aren’t shared, and improvements aren’t tracked. The result is that incidents can often recur. Clare Patterson, Virginia N. L. Franqueira and I lay out a research agenda and practical steps for building true organisational learning into cyber security response. Check it out freely here: https://lnkd.in/es4ntDhm Institute of Cyber Security for Society (iCSS) University of Kent University of Kent #cyberincidents #cyberattacks #learning #ransomware #research #studies

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