On the 18th October 2023, the Talion team headed over to Indian fine dining restaurant Zaika of Kensington in London for the first of our CISO Cyber Dinner series!

After battling the classic English rain and taken through maze-like corridors to the private dining room hidden at the back of the restaurant, customers, partners and prospects alike mingled and introduced themselves, ready to talk about ransomware and insider threat. We were grateful to have not only our Threat Intelligence team presenting on the night, but also our partners DEVO and S-RM. Guests arrived from an array of industries, from Higher Education to Legal and Retail, which made for some interesting and well-rounded conversations.

Here’s a short update on what the event entailed and what you can expect from our future events.

The Discussion: Ransomware and Insider Threat

Talion’s CISO Cyber Dinner series is aimed at bringing CISOs together in a room to openly discuss and collaborate on security pain points, challenges and trending topics. This wasn’t about detailing the specifics of our service offerings. So, when everyone had shook each other’s hands and taken their seat at the table, presentations began – but not in the way you’d expect.

We had Mitch Mellard, Talion’s Threat Intelligence Consultant, start off the evening with a deep dive into the timeline of ransomware operators and what we can learn from them when approaching our own security operations. This sparked some interesting conversation that took off on its own timeline, as CISOs turned round in their seats to speak to their peers about the reputational damage of cyber attacks (does anyone really care about the money?) and how new governance models are enforcing security teams to become more accountable. The prevalence of the board was spoken about in regards to whether CISOs needs are understood and how to have more impact when in this position. It was insightful to hear everybody’s views on this in a comfortable and collaborative environment.

Following on from the Threat Intelligence spotlight, attendees moved onto both the starter and next presentation simultaneously. Dean Robertson, Head of Solution Engineering EMEA at DEVO stood up to touch upon insider threat and the difficulty of monitoring employee conduct. We had some useful conversations, what with the presence of Higher Education institutions, about cybercriminals taking advantage of  travelling students, extorting their positions to get into universities. Whilst individuals may be trusted, it is hard to know what goes on behind the scenes, which is why insider threat is so difficult to identify, monitor and prevent. A few CISOs reiterated the importance of logging to ensure all events are recorded and patterns can be identified, leading to indicators of compromise.

Shortly thereafter, we had a break to enjoy the main dish of the evening – a mix of butter chicken, lamb knuckles, chettinad roast potatoes, naan and more. This was before moving onto our most interactive session of the evening from Ted Cowell, Head of Cyber Security UK at S-RM. We all took out our phones, scanned the QR code on the screen and participated in a fun game of “How (Not) To Talk To Hackers”. Using the Slido poll, we answered questions that popped up on the screen based on how we would react, as a CISO, if we were in the midst of a data breach. We then spoke about the reasoning behind our choices, which were right or wrong (if any) and what the recommended course of action was. Everyone enjoyed sharing their opinion, over a cheesecake dessert, to top off the evening.

This CISO Dinner And The Next…

We really enjoyed meeting all those who attended the CISO Cyber Dinner in October. We hope CISOs walked away with some new insight into how their security teams can increase protection against ransomware and insider threat, seeing the cyber landscape through a new, better-informed lens.

And this certainly isn’t the last of our CISO dinners. We’ll be holding more CISO dinners throughout 2024 as we pool together more and more CISOs to build a security ecosystem that supports one another and holds space for conversation on security topics that matter.

If you want to be notified as soon as a new event is posted, register your interest here.

We also have a LinkedIn group exclusive to our CISO Cyber Dinner events – why not join?