Ahead of his session at DTX + UCX London 2026, Nasser Arif, Cyber Security Manager at the NHS, explains why organisations must recognise the importance of investing in their people to improve their overall cyber resilience. Nasser is speaking at DTX London on October 15, the second of the two day show at London Excel in Docklands.
On the Risk and Resilience Stage his session is titled Into the unknown: Can you defend what you can’t detect? There he will explore how AI is amplifying visibility challenges within organisations, but how humans can be the strongest link in cyber security when they are properly supported.
What cyber threats may organisations struggle to detect and why is this a challenge? ย
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โCyber incidents can start small. Whether it is a phone call, a manipulative email or even someone just holding the right door open at the right time; threat actors can exploit basic human behaviours to achieve their goals. Organisations which focus purely on advanced technical threats may be missing vital, behavioural based warning signs which could prevent the next attack. ย These can be harder to detect if you do not understand the wider business or the humans around you.โ
Where are the biggest visibility gaps within organisations today, and how are threat actors exploiting them?
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โStaff members within organisations are people just like you and me. Cyber security teams do not have direct visibility of the digital threats staff members face in their personal lives. The focus therefore must be on improving core cyber behaviours both at work and at home. Cyber security is everyoneโs responsibility.โ
With IT environments becoming increasingly complex, how can security teams distinguish genuinely suspicious activity from the huge volume of normal activity taking place across their networks?
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โThe first step is understanding what โnormalโ looks like for your organisation. It is vital that security leaders and their teams take an active interest in learning how the wider organisation operates. Ask yourself:
- What service are we providing?
- What kind of data is processed?
- What applications are being used?
- Where are our users located?
- Who are our users?
- What critical functions are we protecting?โ
If organisations accept that they will never have complete visibility of every threat, how should they approach cyber resilience and incident response?
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โCyber resilience, in my opinion, is not just about trying to predict attacks and prevent them. It is also about having the capability to respond to and recover from an incident with minimal impact to the wider organisation. The starting point is to know what your critical functions are within the organisation and who is currently responsible for them.โ
What do you hope attendees to your session at DTX will learn?ย
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โI hope that attendees see that cyber security is not just an IT issue. It forms a critical part of every organisation and must be treated as such. Technical controls only go so far. It is vital that organisations invest in people as well. Both the cyber defenders and wider workforce must have the skills and confidence to protect themselves and their organisation to the best of their ability. Humans can be the strongest link if they are properly supported.โ
