Tag Archives: Supply Chain Risk

Cyber Is New: Why We’re Just Getting Started… Emerging Trends and Future Directions

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Cybersecurity feels foundational today, but as a discipline, it is startlingly young. This article argues that cyber is still in its infancy, especially when compared to IT or financial governance, and outlines why this newness matters. From AI security and quantum disruption to the structural challenges facing certification, education, and regulation, the piece maps both future directions and the underlying trends shaping the field. In a world where cyber is everywhere, this article insists: we’re just getting started.

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Cyber Resilience Testing and Facilities: Mapping, Critique, and the Path Forward

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Between February and March 2025, I analysed the UK’s Cyber Resilience Testing (CRT) initiative and its associated Cyber Resilience Test Facilities (CRTFs). From that research, I developed three articles: one mapping the global standards landscape, one examining CRT’s practical challenges, and one exploring its role as a trust label. Together, they present CRT as a promising but evolving approach: not yet a standard, but under active NCSC development and consultation, with the potential to reshape product-based assurance if given clarity, support, and ecosystem alignment.

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Trust, Labels, and the Path to Meaningful Security: Rethinking CRT Adoption in the UK

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This article critically examines the UK’s Cyber Resilience Test (CRT) as a cybersecurity labelling initiative aimed at building consumer trust in connected devices. While affirming CRT’s importance, it highlights the need for clearer value propositions, stakeholder alignment, and behavioural insights to ensure meaningful adoption. Drawing on global examples like Singapore’s CLS and the EU’s CE mark, it argues that CRT must evolve from a technical standard to a culturally embedded trust signal. The piece advocates for a dynamic playbook that supports SMEs, educates consumers, aligns with procurement policy, and adapts over time — turning CRT into a living, ecosystem-wide standard.

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The Future of Cyber Resilience Testing: Reflections on a Scheme in Transition

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This blog article offers a critical yet constructive reflection on the UK’s Cyber Resilience Testing (CRT) initiative. While CRT is conceptually sound and timely, significant questions remain around cost, demand, usability, policy intent, and delivery responsibility. The article explores whether CRT is positioned to become a meaningful standard or risks being sidelined as another voluntary layer. It advocates for clearer articulation of purpose, audience targeting, and strategic alignment to unlock CRT’s full potential.

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Stakeholder Grid Example 1: Cyber Tzar

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Understanding your stakeholder landscape is key to scaling effectively, especially in cybersecurity, where trust, standards, and adoption often hinge on who’s in the room. This article explores how Cyber Tzar, a cybersecurity scale-up specialising in supply chain risk and cyber risk scoring, applies the Stakeholder Mapping Grid to guide its strategic engagement.

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Did We Influence DSIT’s Cyber Governance Code of Practice?

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This article compares my practitioner response, the IET’s institutional submission, and the final Cyber Governance Code of Practice published in April 2025. It shows where our ideas carried through (supply chain oversight, continuous process, assurance), where they were partly adopted (SME proportionality, professional recognition), and where they were ignored (incentives, legal duties). The conclusion: yes, we influenced the Code — but the hardest issues remain unresolved.

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Cyber Governance Code of Practice 2024: What Government Finally Published

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The UK’s Cyber Governance Code of Practice, published in 2025, sets out five principles for boards: risk management, strategy, people, incident response, and assurance. It places cyber in the boardroom and makes directors personally accountable, but stops short of embedding duties in company law. While clear and structured, the Code lacks incentives, SME pathways, and professional recognition — making uptake uncertain.

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Innovation Incoming in Space: Notes from the Royal Academy of Engineering Panel, 31 March 2025

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The Royal Academy of Engineering’s Innovation Incoming in Space (31 March 2025, Prince Philip House) offered an insightful and fact-rich exploration of the technologies shaping the future of the space economy. With topics ranging from space-based solar power and crystallisation in orbit to modular infrastructure and lunar habitation, the panel discussed how innovation is driving space from the experimental to the operational. Set against the backdrop of geopolitical shifts and commercial competition, the event underscored the UK’s strategic opportunity to lead in agile engineering, cyber resilience, and space-enabled industrial capability. A dawning theme throughout the evening was the growing realisation that space is becoming commercial, contested, and critically dependent on cyber resilience.

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Driving Cyber Resilience in the Defence Supply Chain: Summary of Key Actions and Recommendations and Some Thoughts

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The Ministry of Defence (MOD) has issued a call to action for Defence industry CEOs and Defence Leads, underlining the critical importance of enhancing cyber resilience across the Defence supply chain, “Letter from the Second Permanent Secretary, DG Chief Information Officer and DG Commercial to Defence industry CEOs/Defence Leads“. The letter, signed by Paul Lincoln, Second Permanent Secretary; Charles Forte, DG Chief Information Officer; and Andrew Forzani, DG Commercial, stresses the heightened global cyber threat landscape and the need for immediate and robust action to safeguard the UK’s Defence capabilities.

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From Cyber Essentials to Corporate Governance: Raising the Bar

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Cyber Essentials has value as a baseline, but reaches only 0.3% of UK organisations and says little about governance. This article argues that DSIT’s Cyber Governance Code of Practice must raise the bar, from compliance to accountability, from self-attestation to credible assurance, and from one-off certificates to continuous governance. Cyber Essentials is the floor; governance must be the ceiling.

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From Practitioner to Professional Body: The IET Response on Cyber Governance

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This article examines the IET’s joint response to DSIT’s 2024 consultation on the Cyber Governance Code of Practice. Building on my practitioner-led analysis, the IET added institutional weight: emphasising professional recognition, proportionality for SMEs, broader engagement, and integration into training. It shows how practitioner insight and professional consensus can work together to shape policy.

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Directors and Cyber Governance: My Practitioner’s Response to DSIT’s Consultation

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This article revisits my practitioner-led response to DSIT’s 2024 consultation on the Cyber Governance Code of Practice. It highlights key issues I raised: supply chain risk, flaws in self-attestation, tool overload, lack of incentives, and the need for continuous governance. The argument is simple: cyber resilience belongs in the boardroom, but only if policy is grounded in practice.

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