When Oz Alashe MBE left the Special Forces for the world of business, he brought his sense of service with him. The former paratrooper launched CybSafe in 2015 to take on the bad guys of the digital world.
“Innovative technology comes out of a problem, and cybersecurity is about enabling us to use new technologies to solve major problems,” Oz told Michael Hayman on the latest episode of the Capital Conversation.
CybSafe is a security platform that focuses on the human side of digital safety and tackling how prone we are to falling for scams. “You’d be amazed at how many people who pick up a USB stick with the word ‘bonuses,’ written on it and plug it straight in!”
CybSafe educates employees with intuitive learning techniques designed to optimise behavioural change. Through intelligent software and analytics, CybSafe learns the individual behaviour patterns of a business’s employees, as well as the evolving methods of cyber criminals.
The platform is designed around the principle that if people know how to behave better online, they will be more secure. But after the recent hackings of Parliament and the NHS, how secure are we?
“The reality is that we are as safe as we want to be. People are easily duped and sometimes we are too trusting. We cannot trust that everything we put online will remain safe.”
The UK government has placed its own bet on the sector’s potential: it has commited £1.9bn over five years to support its growth. With the National Cyber Security Council, it hopes to make London ‘the safest place in the world to do business online.’
While Brexit may throw up concerns about London’s long-term future, Oz takes an optimistic view, “The cybersecurity sector in London is vibrant and growing, blessed with talent and innovation, which together tends to produce spectacular results.”
You can watch the full episode here.