Data Use and Access Act 2025: What Changes for IT
The Data (Use and Access) Act 2025 received Royal Assent on 19 June 2025, and the majority of its UK GDPR, DPA 2018 and PECR amendments commenced on 5…
Supply Chain Cyber Risk Assessment: A UK Buyer's Playbook
NCSC’s supply-chain guidance collection was updated in 2026 and is currently organised into Foundations, Application and Consolidation, with the colle…
Penetration Testing Cost UK: 2026 Rates & Scoping Guide
UK IT leaders navigating commercial assurance, cyber insurance renewals, and compliance audits frequently struggle with opaque security pricing. Acros…
Defender for Office 365 vs Mimecast: Keep or Replace in 2026?
Microsoft's mid-2026 packaging update quietly rewired this decision: Microsoft 365 E3 now includes Defender for Office 365 Plan 1, a control UK IT tea…
UK Ransomware Payment Ban: What It Means for Response Plans
The UK government is advancing legislative proposals to curb cyber extortion through a targeted payment ban for public bodies and regulated critical n…
Cyber Security and Resilience Bill: Are You in Scope for 2026?
As of September 2026, the Cyber Security and Resilience Bill remains before Parliament ahead of final passage into law. The legislation represents a m…
Shadow AI Policy UK 2026: Block, Sanction, or Govern?
Unsanctioned artificial intelligence in the workplace has shifted from an occasional rogue habit toward a **widely embedded practice across many enter…
Machine Identity Security 2026: Taming the AI Agent Surge
Machine identities — service accounts, API keys, certificates and now AI agents — outnumber human identities by 109 to 1 on average, according to Palo…
Zero Trust Microsegmentation for UK On-Prem Estates 2026
Most zero-trust projects start and stop at identity — verifying users and devices before letting them through the front door. But once someone is insi…
AI-Powered Cyber Attacks 2026: A UK Defence Playbook
AI-powered cyber attacks have quietly flipped the economics of phishing. Microsoft's Digital Defense Report 2025, cited by the Cloud Security Alliance…
Ransomware 2026: How Attacks Changed & UK Defence
The ransomware playbook has quietly rewritten itself. By mid-2026, encryption is almost an afterthought: 96% of incidents in Q1 2026 involved data exf…
Post-Quantum Cryptography: Harvest-Now Readiness
The encryption protecting your most sensitive data has an expiry date, and adversaries have already started the countdown. "Harvest now, decrypt later…
Post-quantum cryptography: the NCSC 2035 roadmap for UK orgs
A cryptographically-relevant quantum computer doesn't exist yet — but the deadline to defend against one is already running, because attackers can ste…
Cisco ASA to Firepower or FortiGate: a UK migration playbook
Cisco ASA is end-of-engineering for new features — the product line continues to receive security patches but Cisco directs all new investment to Fire…
Best EDR platform UK 2026: CrowdStrike vs SentinelOne vs Sophos vs Microsoft Defender XDR
CrowdStrike Falcon, SentinelOne Singularity, Sophos Intercept X, and Microsoft Defender for Endpoint / Defender XDR are the four endpoint detection + …
How to choose an EDR platform: a 7-question framework for UK IT teams
Most UK organisations setting out to choose an EDR platform end up shortlisting CrowdStrike, SentinelOne, Sophos, and Microsoft Defender XDR — the fou…
Migrating from legacy VPN to ZTNA (Zscaler or Prisma Access): 90-day UK playbook
Legacy IPSec / SSL VPN concentrators were the model for the 2000s — they don't fit a hybrid-work, multi-cloud, M&A-active 2026 estate. Zero Trust Netw…
Best firewall UK 2026: FortiGate vs Palo Alto vs Cisco Firepower vs Juniper SRX
Most UK firewall RFPs land on the same shortlist: FortiGate, Palo Alto, Cisco Firepower, Juniper SRX. They all do NGFW + IPS + SSL inspection + ZTNA +…
Migrating from legacy AV to modern EDR (CrowdStrike or SentinelOne): UK playbook
Legacy signature-based antivirus (Symantec, McAfee, Trend Micro, ESET) is end-of-life for ransomware defence. Modern EDR — CrowdStrike Falcon, Sentine…
Best SASE platform UK 2026: Zscaler vs Palo Alto Prisma vs Netskope vs Cato vs Microsoft Entra Internet Access
Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) is now the default replacement for legacy VPN + perimeter firewall + URL filtering. The UK shortlist is Zscaler, Pal…
DSP Toolkit 2026 submission guide for NHS organisations
The Data Security and Protection (DSP) Toolkit is the annual mandatory submission for any UK organisation accessing NHS data. The 2025-26 version refr…
Server BMC and firmware security in 2026: the attack surface beneath the OS
Every server has a small computer inside it that almost no security programme watches: the baseboard management controller. The BMC - iDRAC on Dell, i…
ISO 27001:2022 Annex A control mapping for UK IT teams
ISO 27001:2022 restructured Annex A from 114 controls (2013 version) down to 93 — but the change is substantive, not cosmetic. The new structure organ…
Cyber insurance discounts: how Cyber Essentials Plus cuts UK SII premiums
UK cyber insurance premiums rose 50-200% across 2022-2024 as ransomware claims escalated. Cyber Essentials Plus increasingly attracts material discoun…
PCI-DSS 4.0 UK survival guide 2026
PCI-DSS 4.0 fully replaced 3.2.1 in March 2024, with the most-onerous new controls becoming mandatory in March 2025. UK retailers, hospitality groups,…
Cyber Essentials Plus 2026 UK buyer's guide
Cyber Essentials Plus (CE+) is the UK government-backed cyber certification scheme that has become a de-facto baseline for supplier-onboarding, insura…
How to pick a UK MSSP: 12 procurement questions
Most UK mid-market organisations trying to pick an MSSP — a Managed Security Services Provider for SOC + MDR + incident response — struggle to compare…
NIS2 UK implementation checklist 2026
The EU's NIS2 Directive came into force in October 2024. UK organisations with EU operations, EU customers, or supply-chain reach into EU "essential" …
UK GDPR for IT teams: DPIA, DSAR, data residency
UK GDPR (the post-Brexit version of EU GDPR) has been law since January 2021. The ICO's enforcement appetite increased significantly in 2024-25 — mult…
SOC 2 Type II readiness for UK SaaS vendors
SOC 2 Type II is an American certification (AICPA, designed for US-headquartered service organisations) — but UK SaaS vendors selling to US customers,…
DORA Article 30: what UK financial services firms need in their ICT third-party contracts
The Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA) came into force across the EU in January 2025. UK-headquartered firms with EU subsidiaries, EU-licensed …
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