“Every individual user of information technology and digital capabilities is a potential cyber sensor and defender, or a potential vulnerability.”

 Cyber Primer, Ministry of Defence

A strategic vulnerability?

The defence industry is a vital part of the UK economy and the backbone of Britain’s export market. But its size and maturity is also one of its biggest weaknesses. Given the scale, reach and complexity of many of the incumbent organisations, the sector has become a prime candidate for coordinated attacks and inadvertent data breaches

The challenge of protecting the defence supply chain from cyber incidents is growing, with more technology assets in circulation and a more widely dispersed workforce.

The MOD’s Cyber Resilience Strategy sets a requirement for industry to:

1. Adopt an open mindset to resetting security relationship.
2. Actively support cyber resilience audits and drive forward remedial actions.
3. Improve the protection of Defence information and embrace the adoption of Secure by Design policy throughout the lifecycle of military capabilities.
4. Proactively develop Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery Plans, intentionally engage in creating exercising opportunities, and demonstrate operational resilience.

But with 90 percent of organisations unable to identify 20 percent of their endpoints, most organisations are simply not in a position to prevent a cyber incident, let alone rapidly make informed decisions about how to respond to one.

AGENDA
08:45 Welcome and Introductions

08:50 MOD Presentation

09:05 Virtual Roundtable Discussion
1. Establishing a single source of truth to identify and respond to a cyber incident
2. Pre-emptively identifying and resolving cyber vulnerabilities
3. Creating mitigation and response teams across security, infrastructure, ITOps, compliance and legal

10:00 Close