Atkins-hosted ADS Reception highlights cyber resilience
Last week design, engineering and project management consultancy Atkins hosted and sponsored an ADS Members' Reception at its Bristol office, focused on effective cyber resilience. Speakers on the day (29 September) included former Commander, Joint Forces Command, General Sir Richard Barrons, who provided a defence perspective, and Phil Litherland, from EDF Energy, who provided a nuclear industry insight. Dr Martyn Bull from Bristol-based Riskware offered an SME perspective, while Atkins’ Technology Director Russell Cameron shared his thoughts on the engineering challenge of designing in cyber resilience to our nation’s critical national infrastructure.
Above:
The speakers at the ADS Reception in Atkins’ Bristol office (from left to right): Russell Cameron, Phil Litherland, Martin Chalmers, Paul Everitt, General Sir Richard Barrons and Dr Martyn Bull.
The event was chaired by ADS Chairman Paul Everitt and closing remarks were offered by Martin Chalmers, managing director of Atkins’ Aerospace, Defence, Security & Technology division.
After the presentations and an engaging panel discussion, the attendees were invited to network and learn more about effective cyber resilience from an exhibition set up in the atrium.
Martin Chalmers said: “As the digital world continues to impact on the physical world, cyber is a growing concern for businesses, providers of critical national infrastructure, and defence and security sectors.
“Cyber resilience is a term that is often heard, but there doesn’t seem to be a consistent definition of what it really means. We view cyber resilience as the ability of an organisation to understand the cyber threats it is facing, to take an informed and balanced view on risk, to put in place proportionate protection, and to recover quickly from attack.
“This event provided an opportunity for attendees to gain privileged insight from the keynote speakers into everything from the geopolitical context of the threat to emerging cyber resilience best practice. If any proof was necessary that this issue is a growing concern for all businesses, this was provided in abundance by the networking session, which revealed the range of cyber resilience challenges faced by organisations from a wide array of sectors and of all shapes and sizes – from local SMEs to multinational companies.”
Paul Everitt added: “It was great to see a large number of our membership at the Reception. The keynote speeches providing different industry perspectives on cyber resilience were very engaging and generated a good discussion. Many thanks to all those who attended and, in particular, to Atkins for hosting a successful event.”