In the interconnected world we live in, where data flows freely and business operations span the digital landscape, cybersecurity has become crucial for ensuring the safety and continuity of businesses. The evolving landscape of cyber threats has forced companies to rethink their security strategies to protect their valuable assets.

“Technology changes rapidly, as do the approaches of cybercriminals, so we are constantly evaluating what we are doing to stay ahead of the game,” says Jonathan. “We help clients understand the issues and the cost benefits of solutions based on risk. There is always that feeling of ‘it could never happen to me’, but if it does businesses and their reputations can very quickly become flattened.”

It is time for business leaders to challenge the conventional notions of trust and embrace a paradigm that demands nothing less than constant vigilance – the Zero Trust approach to cybersecurity.

razorblue helps clients develop bespoke air-gapped data protection and private networks to transmit data securely. As well as this, they help clients formulate disaster recovery plans to minimise the impact of any attack.

razorblue has also developed its own bespoke security operations centre, which looks at trends and patterns, triggering and analysing alerts, after picking up unusual activity, providing clients with an extra level of service.

“It might turn out to be a false alarm, or it could be that a password has become vulnerable for some reason. We still have an engineer there to check anything that is flagged, as its better to be safe than sorry,” says Jonathan.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is the latest technology to pique interest on both sides of the law. “One of the most important elements is understanding how it can add value to business, to understand the context and content and how to apply this to your knowledge base,” says Jonathan.

“One of the things you can do with AI, if you have a big dataset, is to train it using that data and historic outcomes. For example we have a helpdesk management system that receives thousands and thousands of cases, and we have utilised AI to triage and direct these cases to the right engineer or team, which is a lot more efficient for our customer,” says Jonathan.

“We are also using Sentiment Analysis, AI tools which detect the tone of our communications with clients. Email is clunky and can be misinterpreted. This latest technology can pick up whether clients are becoming frustrated or whether we are missing their point. We are using AI to identify security trends and enhance the skills of our staff. With the continual growth of the tech sector there will always be a place for humans.”

The North East is well-placed to contribute and cash in on the continual development of technology, according to Jonathan. “We have some really good people and institutions, but since the pandemic and the growth of remote working now we have to compete with the likes of Manchester, Leeds and London,” he says.

“To overcome this, we are working with the universities and colleges and investing in apprenticeships and placements. We want local people to stay. It’s not just a job it’s a long-term opportunity. The universities are turning out great people and are very active in finding out what employers need. There is something culturally in the North East where people want to work together to achieve the next stage. We also work with a number of other organisations and we do find they listen. The North East is trying to become the best, but we could do with more government-led investment so companies make it their base.”

If they did they would find the future is bright. “We have had another good year and are looking at bringing in a combination of further acquisition and expanded services particularly around security,” says Jonathan. “The aim is to continue investing in people and buildings to contribute to the economic prosperity of the North East.”