If you missed out on our first-ever coffee and questions cybersecurity event, then keep reading to catch up on what you missed out on!
Our event took place on Thursday, 11 September at Venue 16 in Ipswich. We were thrilled to welcome Ben Proudlove, Modern Microsoft Workplace, Ingram Micro and Andrew Stanton, Managing Director, Cyber Trust, who both delivered exceptional keynote speeches about the capabilities of AI (primarily Microsoft Copilot) and the immediate and long-term security implications that we all face.
Local business concerns about cybersecurity defences
With 273 cybercrime reports and £20,000 lost to cybercrime in the East of England last year (July-June 2025) (source: Cybercrime statistics c/o NFIB Fraud and Cyber Crime Dashboard), it is clear why local businesses in Ipswich are extremely worried about how to remain safe online.
During our event, we welcomed more than 30 businesses to talk to us about their biggest concerns, and many of them told us that they’re not confident in their ability to stay resilient to online threats.
The topics of safety, reassurance and AI security kept coming up during the discussions, and this confirms that we will need to work harder to provide extensive cybersecurity training to protect local businesses.
As our cybersecurity lead, Karl Wilkinson says,
“The discussions in the room confirmed that businesses want to use AI safely in their businesses, but they are not confident that their business infrastructure is as secure as it could be. We’ve all heard the stories of the big brand data hacks, but what we need to raise more awareness of is the smaller data breaches that are affecting local companies.”
“We asked for a show of hands whether any of the guests had been affected by a breach, and there were people in the room who had already suffered financial losses as a result of a cyber incident. Hackers will be far more likely to target smaller firms, because their defences are often a lot weaker, which is why we’re constantly advocating for every business to put basic safeguards in place to protect themselves as much as they possibly can.”
If you’re not confident in your security settings, then please talk directly to our team. We would rather spend an hour or two checking all of your password protocols, establishing MFA and double-checking your user access settings than spending days trying to regain access to your system.
As we always say, prevention is much easier, much quicker and significantly more affordable than trying to deal with the ramifications of a cyberattack. The more time and effort you put into protecting your business from data breaches or cybercrimes, the better!
How safe and secure is AI in the workplace?
Every guest in the room admitted to using an AI tool such as ChatGPT; however, many were shocked to realise that their data could be at risk if appropriate data protection safeguards are not put in place.
As Ben Proudlove from Ingram Micro says,
“These tools are highly effective and welcome in the workplace, but it’s about recognising the security implications and the culture shift that is needed to ensure full safety. It’s important to have policies and processes in place so that you know how to identify which AI tools are safe to use. It’s about ensuring that you have the right user access permissions in place, so that confidential information isn’t accidentally leaked and educating employees to ensure that everyone is aware of how AI needs to link in with governance and risk factors.”
This is something that we’ve previously written about in our articles, “Are your employees unintentionally risking your confidential data?” and “Why it’s essential to protect small and medium-sized businesses from digital threats”
We think these are worth saving to your bookmarks and sharing with your team.
There’s no doubt that when used correctly, AI is a complete game-changer for almost all of us in the workplace. However, it does bring its own risks, so your policies and protocols must be up to date.
This is something we can help you with. You haven’t got the time to spend updating all of your internal policies and documents, but we can work alongside your HR team and senior teams to ensure that you have the right IT policies in place for your business.
Understanding the security implications of AI is essential
So the question remains: what risks are your business facing thanks to AI?
It turns out that the answer is far more multifaceted than just security governance.
Andrew Stanton from the Cyber Trust answered questions about the risks that businesses currently face, not just from data breaches, but also the risk of overreliance on AI and understanding the wider supply chain involved.
He says,
“AI itself isn’t the threat; it’s how you use it that becomes the risk factor. I always say that hackers aren’t trying to break down your doors to get into your system, they are trying to steal your keys. That’s why social engineering is the biggest problem we currently face. Whether you are a large company or a solo operator, you need to ensure strong passwords and implement MFA because basic cyber hygiene can reduce incidents by as much as 90%.”
“But I would also urge businesses to be cautious. Many of your staff might be using AI without you even realising it, while many tools that we use every day are now adding additional AI features behind the scenes, which could also compromise your data. We are now all part of a cohesive ecosystem, whether we realise it or not. By improving your own defences, you’ll naturally help to defend other people.”
Now more than ever, we all need to work together to protect ourselves and each other from threats. Hackers are using AI to target businesses at scale. Historically, phishing scams were relatively easy to spot because mistranslations, spelling mistakes and poor phrasing were key indicators that something wasn’t right. However, now, not only can AI scale up the volume of malicious hacks, but they can also intuitively write (and speak) in the same style as your co-workers or follow brand guidelines.
As one guest in the room explained, “We use AI to create videos mimicking my voice, but even I struggle to tell the difference between my own voice and something that is AI-generated. How can you stay safe when technology is this sophisticated?”
We implement layered cybersecurity defence strategies.
We will always put multiple defence layers in place, whether it’s password security, identification mechanisms or more technical solutions. These multi-layered defences will need to be continually monitored, assessed and improved on.
As Karl Wilkinson says,
“There’s never an end point when it comes to security settings. There will always be something else you can add on, or something new to check and rectify. But the most important thing we can all do is remain vigilant. If you spot something that doesn’t seem quite right, or you have an uneasy feeling about something, always make sure that you talk to us. The quicker we know about a potential problem, the better.”
Why not book in for a network health check and security audit?
We want to help you identify vulnerabilities, implement essential safeguards and build the confidence to make the most of AI tools securely. With our ISO 27001 accreditation, you can be confident that we’ll align your system with global best practice standards. Where possible, we can guide you through the Cyber Essentials certification process, ensuring that you’ve got documentable proof that your system is as safe as possible.
Suffolk Businesses who would like to sign up for their own network health check and security audit can do so by getting in touch.
It could be the best investment you ever make.
