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Photo of Carol Gavriks

A Norwich-based Account Manager is set to take a giant leap for a local charity, by plunging 13,000 feet out of a plane.

Carol Gavriks, Account Manager at legal technology firm Tiger Eye, will be undertaking a sky dive next month to raise funds for the company’s charity of the year – Norfolk and Waveney Mind.

The dive will take place on Friday 22^nd July at Beccles Airfield. During the tandem skydive, Carol is set to reach speeds of over 120 miles per hour in this once in a lifetime thrill-seeking experience.

On the dive, Carol commented: “A tandem skydive has been on my bucket list for many years, and when the opportunity came to fundraise for this vital cause while completing my lifelong dream, I snapped up the opportunity.”

Norfolk and Waveney Mind was nominated as Tiger Eye’s charity of the year back in January. Whilst part of the Mind network, Norfolk and Waveney Mind are an independent charity who raise their own funds. The charity supports those within the community with their mental health and wellbeing from prevention support to crisis support, offering an extensive range of mental health services, along with associated training, advice, and information.

On the chosen charity, Carol added: “I first became aware of this wonderful charity when I needed support after giving birth to my daughter and was struggling with my mental health. I was very grateful to have my family members, friends and other professionals supporting me during that time. It made me think how I could return the favour to support others now and encourage them to talk to professionals, or have access to a charity like Norfolk and Waveney Mind, the local mental health charity that believes no one should have to face a mental health problem alone!”

To donate and support Carol in reaching her ambitious £1000 target, visit: https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/carol-gavriks

Historically the biotech and pharma industries were most at risk from insider threats or espionage being carried out by people who infiltrated an organisation to learn secrets or directly steal information, data or intellectual property.  Now though much of the work they do, although resulting in physical products, happens online and the resulting intellectual property, data and information is stored online too.

In an industry where the competition is high and the stakes are often higher, as are the rewards, cyber security should be a business imperative – if you work hard enough to create something you should work equally as hard to protect it from threats.  One UK based medical research company was set to begin work on trials of Covid-19 vaccines when it was targeted by the Maze ransomware group, as reported by Computer Weekly.  In this sector media coverage, or past successes, can create a target where there wasn’t one before, so being prepared to defend yourself is a key thing to look at before any announcements or breakthroughs are communicated.

Big data growth has made it possible to collate and store vast amounts of medical, trial and genetic information for organisations in these fast moving, high growth sectors.  It’s no surprise then that the most commonly understood threats are focused on data, intellectual property or results from tests and trials.  Biotech and pharma companies tend to have a bias towards protecting technology as it both holds this information and facilitates much of the work being done, but the reality is that their security risks go beyond this. As an example we see further risks once drugs go in to production as raw materials are being shipped and can be identified, essentially giving away some of the hard earned intellectual property.  Production can also be disrupted by cyber criminals who target parts of the supply chain in an attempt to bring down the business through their suppliers.

Anything that isn’t within your direct control should be considered as a third party risk, and with the supply chain being so complex and essential to biotech and pharma businesses, due diligence across your suppliers is paramount to more secure business operations.  Cyber security doesn’t stop at the edges of your business, and any potential weakness in a supplier business are attractive to cyber criminals as they can potentially disrupt many organisations with one attack.  You can find out more about securing your supply chain in a series of articles over on our blog.

Physical security for businesses operating in biotech and pharma is also a key area of risk.  Very much in the same way that cyber criminals are able to access valuable information, the risk from either being infiltrated by someone out to harm the business or from one of their own staff posing an insider threat further places these businesses under pressure to invest in physical security measures.  Doing this will provide a further layer of defence that isn’t always required in other industries.  Additional layers of protection may be required regarding building access, levels of data or systems access and vetting of new staff and leavers.

It is important to highlight that these risks are not just present for the larger firms.  There is a huge global network of start-up and scaleup businesses in this sector and as there appear to be no formal requirements for them to report whether they have been targeted in cyber-attacks, there isn’t an easy way to know how often these organisations are being targeted.  Being nimble in this space is an advantage but that often means that elements of security can be overlooked or compromised as there is often no dedicated resource looking at this aspect.  It is also possible that staff are arriving quickly as the business scales and onboarding doesn’t cover basic security hygiene, which can create risks especially around phishing and ransomware attacks leading to data breaches.

The same adaptability and capacity to pivot that is seen in the core business should be harnessed for the benefit of protecting data, intellectual property and systems.

Cyber security is often cited as being everyone’s responsibility, and in many ways it is.  However, there needs to be a high level of both engagement and ownership within the leadership team as without this it is unrealistic to expect the wider organisation to play their part in securing the business.  Many leaders in this industry may come from the academic or scientific communities and not bring with them a working knowledge of cyber and information security, and this is where investing in raising levels of awareness and competency across the workforce will provide great benefits.

There are two key ways in which this can be done, either by bringing in a Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) or if there is not the need or justification for this being a full time role many organisations opt for a virtual Chief Information Security Officer (vCISO).  A vCISO will enable your organisation to quickly have the knowledge and experience needed to assess your current security position and start shaping what needs to be done to build a cyber security strategy and its delivery. Alongside this, training all staff should be seen as a key part of the cyber security strategy, whether it’s the leadership team who need this support in terms of how to manage security across the whole organisation, or the wider staff team who have low awareness of the everyday risks and need this to become embedded in their roles.

If your organisation operates in the biotech or pharma industries and you need support in understanding and managing the risks you face, CyberScale can help you on that journey.

Confidence is king

Success comes from being confident; we need confidence to make decisions for the betterment of both our business and personal lives. We wouldn’t marry someone unless we’re confident we love and trust them; likewise, don’t go into business with someone unless you’re confident in their skill, commitment and honesty!

James and Mark discuss the current lack of confidence in society that has followed lockdown, and the negative impact a lack of confidence can have. It can be catastrophic for businesses in particular, but there are ways in which we can reprogramme our brains to find the positives in any given situation and reframe our thinking.

They look at the process of comparing our inner thoughts with other people’s external projections; how to influence and encourage; the nature vs nurture argument; and how understanding what confidence really is and how to achieve it will ultimately lead to success.

For show notes, how to get in touch with the podcast team and to listen to the podcast, click below.

Listen here!

A Greater Anglia train. Credit: Greater Anglia

Train drivers’ union ASLEF has announced another strike date for its Greater Anglia members –Saturday 23 July.

While talks will continue to try to resolve the strike, Greater Anglia is warning passengers of widespread disruption should the strike go ahead.

This will be the third strike day by ASLEF’s Greater Anglia train drivers. During the last strike, on Saturday 2 July, the company could not run over 90 per cent of its services.

Greater Anglia Managing Director Jamie Burles said: “We hope this dispute can be resolved and the strike action proposed for 23 July cancelled, but in the meantime we want to give our customers as much notice as possible that there will be disruption if the strike does go ahead.

“We are making arrangements and drawing up timetables in case the action does take place, and we will keep our customers updated.

“If there is a strike, our advice to customers will be to avoid travelling on our trains. With drivers on strike, we can only run minimal services and just on limited routes and between limited hours too for most of those routes.

“We are aware that many customers will have plans to travel – it’s the first weekend of the school holidays and the weekend of the Latitude Festival. We’re genuinely sorry if this strike disrupts people’s plans.”

On Saturday 2 July, there were no services between Cambridge and London Liverpool Street, nor on any branch lines or regional routes.

There were severely reduced services between Norwich, Colchester, Southend Victoria and Stansted Airport and London Liverpool Street, with far fewer trains than usual.

Full information including timetables, how to refund or change tickets and first and last train times will be available on the Greater Anglia website as soon as it becomes available.

Rail commuters in East Anglia can now buy flexi season tickets on ticket machines across the Greater Anglia network.

The flexi season ticket is a bundle of 8 day passes for a specific journey between two stations to be used in 28 days. The tickets can be used at any time within the 28-day period.

Customers can buy another flexi season ticket within the 28 days if they use up their eight passes.

And now customers can buy them quickly and easily by using Greater Anglia’s self-serve ticket machines, making it quicker and easier to commute at a time convenient to them.

Anyone who needs help using the ticket machine can press the ticket assistance help button on the machine to be connected to ticket office staff in Norwich who will guide the customer on the machine.

Flexi seasons can be bought on any Greater Anglia ticket machine outside of the London oyster area.

These tickets are also still available from the ticket office or to buy online from the Greater Anglia website.

Flexi season tickets must be loaded on to a Smart card, which is more durable than a paper ticket and quicker and easier to use at the ticket gates.

They are cheaper than buying anytime day return tickets on the day of travel and passengers can claim a refund on the dates not used, and they can cancel at any time.

Martin Moran, Greater Anglia’s Commercial, Customer Services and Train Presentation Director, said: “The pandemic has seen many people’s travel patterns change. We know our customers are spending part of their working week in the office and at home, and the flexi season helps them save money on their commute.

“Since its launch last summer, the flexi season ticket has been incredibly popular with our customers and we’re pleased they can now buy it from our ticket machines, which are quick and easy to use.”

Greg is Head Coach of British Para Table Tennis and a performance coach. He believes that the best performers rely on their gut when it matters, whether that’s on a track, field or in business. But this only works if you know yourself!

They discuss how you can learn to focus on yourself, and understand what makes you tick, and how knowing your strengths, triggers and blind spots will help you perform under pressure, and nurture positive personal relationships.

Greg deep dives into the process of performing under pressure – a tactical approach, physical preparation, and how we can’t ignore how we operate under stress, as this can negate any technical ability.

They also look at constraint based learning; how to adapt efficiently to cope with context; and how to harness positive and empowering relationships, particularly at work.

Greg lets us in on what it really takes to ‘make it’ at Olympic-level sport, and what he has learnt from the inspiring journeys of the Paralympic athletes he has worked with. He also discusses his work in trying to dispel the stigma behind the Paralympics, and how we can all learn from what it really takes for coaches to train the top level.

Listen here!