On the 26th of March 2020, chancellor Rishi Sunak announced a “lifeline package of support” worth £9 Billion for the 4.9 million Self-Employed workers in the UK. …

One volunteer’s perceptions of the programme, and reasons for leaving. — I was National Protect Lead at CSCV (Cyber Specials Cyber Volunteers) from autumn 2017 until February 2019, when I resigned from both my role and my membership. Over the last 6 months I’ve been asked repeatedly why I left and about the current status of the programme. Each time I’ll…

More for you for less (privacy) — Thanks to the introduction of the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) many companies had to change their policies and practices surrounding data collection and retention for the benefit of us all. …

I’ve written about terminology being misused in the past, and unverified advice being thrown around leading to damaging consequences, but there’s another worrying trend that I’ve stumbled upon. That is, of course, this shorthand of calling digital crime “hacks” and, even more worryingly, digital criminals “hackers”. If you follow me…

Start eating your own dog food. — Over the last year or two, I’ve seen a fairly disturbing trend in social media accounts (that are intended to promote online safety) making the general public less safe by promoting known bad advice or simply not following their own rules. If you follow me on Twitter or LinkedIn, you’ll…

Whether it’s browsing on social media, reading a newspaper, or listening to a talk, I’ve seen the threat of “Mishing” becoming far more severe in the last few years. In the beginning, I thought that it would lose traction and become less of a threat over time, unfortunately though, that’s…

An often repeated piece of advice you might hear when it comes to doorstep crime is to put a “no cold calling” sticker or sign on your front door. The idea is pretty simple, and seems effective, if you assume that legitimate callers won’t knock and therefore any callers that…

A big question on everyone’s mind, and one that I get asked almost weekly, is “how safe is contactless?”. Many people are rightly skeptical when it comes to new technology, especially after listening to one of my talks. …

That’s why I built an app to show you — When giving talks, my go-to party piece is to use the text spoofer on either an individual audience member or the entire auditorium (I’m looking at you MBNA attendees). What’s great about this is that even if I’ve given text spoofing a huge introduction and explained the technicalities behind how…