IT Essentials: Security can’t take a summer holiday

It's all fun and games until you’re breached

Sow your defences in spring and reap the benefits through the year.

It would be a massive boon if all the urgent work just stopped over the summer, wouldn’t it? Think of it: meetings cancelled in favour of three months working in the sun, a move that would singlehandedly revitalise the embattled British ice cream and deckchair industries.

Sadly that doesn’t happen, especially in the cyber space, as I was reminded at our annual Cybersecurity Festival in London this week.

While cyberattacks are unpredictable, there are patterns through the year. They often ramp up in the summer as security staff take their well-earned rest; and come September, incidents at schools sprout like mushrooms in the autumn rain. There’s inevitably one big incident before Christmas, too, which really spoils the holidays.

Without wanting to scare anyone, that’s all still to come this year, making this the perfect time to get ready. On a broader note, this is also the time to prepare for future technologies. Chris Betz, AWS CISO and guest on our Ctrl Alt Lead podcast this week, warned about the risks in AI agents, while Leon Butler, IBM UK&I CEO, focused on quantum security. Listen to Chris’ episode here and watch for Leon's on 19th May.

But while my podcast guests looked to technology, the experts at the Cybersecurity Festival stressed the need for user-centric security.

That’s not just staff. As cyber experts Rebecca Taylor and Ben Rowe put it, “Cybersecurity starts at home,” meaning treat every incident – no matter where it strikes – with the same response. That’s just good practice.

There’ll be no summer off for security staff this year (or any year), and we should all take a lesson from that. Don’t let the sunshine lull you into letting your guard down, however tempting it might be.

While deepfakes are getting all the attention, John Leonard has reported on how AI is actually being used for cyberattacks: to speed up the grunt work. Yes, even hackers are using AI to focus on their most productive tasks.

This week marks an important point in our feature calendar: the release of our annual research into cloud sustainability. This year, Penny Horwood has expanded its scope and narrowed its focus to go beyond the big hyperscalers and include vendors like Oracle, IBM and Ionos – though even without those new entrants, there have been big shifts in the rankings.

And Javed Iqbal, director of digital and transformation at FTSE100 firm British American Tobacco, has some advice on making the cloud wars work for you: play your partners off against each other.