Season 6, Post 39: Hanging out with the cyber experts
We’ve said for a very long time that data have no value unless secured, stored and analysed. With the advent of all things AI, this topic has only become even more front of mind, both for investors and businesses. If you’re a Chief Technology Officer or Head of IT, then the United Communications Expo (UCX) is the place to find out what’s hot in the world of cyber. Your author joined Heptagon’s very own CTO – and occasional Blog guest (see here, here and here) – at the 2024 UCX event.
Close on 9,000 people descended on London’s ExCeL conference venue last week to hear the cyber story from the likes of vendors such as Okta, Sophos and ThreatLocker as well as to learn how leading businesses such as Boots, Capital One and Jaguar Land Rover are responding to the evolving threat landscape. The need for nimbleness and the augmenting role of AI were the two most pervasive themes we encountered across multiple presentations and conversations.
As obvious as it may sound, the cyber world has always been about asymmetry. Adversaries only need to get lucky once to benefit. Several event attendees highlighted how the barriers to committing cybercrime were lower than conventional crime, with subsequent potential policing and recriminations often lax. For IT purchasers this implies three things: implement a culture of paranoia among employees – or don’t let them be fooled by phishing emails; allocate your IT budget carefully; and be open to embrace the new.
Many with whom we spoke saw the logic for vendor consolidation (or platformisation, as is the industry buzz term) but not all had adopted this approach by any means. We heard about the fear of the unknown and the opportunity cost of switching. CrowdStrike’s well-publicised outage shocked many, but anecdotally, had yet to result in many meaningful contract cancellations.
Might AI be a panacea? No, seemed to be the consensus view. “It won’t solve everything” was the response of one speaker, while another said, “don’t assume it’s a simple answer-machine.” Have no doubts, lots of Dollars (and marketing material – based on what we saw at the event) are being thrown in this direction, but as we have noted elsewhere, hype and reality are very different things. Where AI can help is in terms of its speed, ability to learn and, to detect abnormal patterns of use behaviour. If AI can automate previously cumbersome processes, then it should make both investors and CTOs happier people.
8 October 2024
The above does not constitute investment advice and is the sole opinion of the author at the time of publication. Past performance is no guide to future performance and the value of investments and income from them can fall as well as rise.
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Alex Gunz, Fund Manager
Photos courtesy of the author.
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