When the Board Meets the Breach
What happens when a CEO, a CISO, a business owner, and a Tier 1 analyst walk into a simulated cyber-attack? That’s exactly what we found out at our Cyber Breach and Resilience Workshop, held aboard Bristol’s legendary SS Great Britain.
It was a full house, with delegates from across industry sectors. But once the cyber breach simulation began, titles faded fast. The room came alive with debate: Should the board “go public” early, or should the technical team investigate quietly first? Voices rose, ideas clashed, and people leaned in. It was exactly the kind of pressure you only feel when it really matters.
That moment summed up the heart of the workshop – understanding that a cyber breach isn’t just an IT issue. It’s an organisational crisis that tests leadership, communication, and readiness.
Throughout the day, delegates swapped stories from their own organisations, what’s worked, what hasn’t, and how they’ve built playbooks to manage different types of incidents. The conversations were candid and collaborative, and there was a real sense of learning together rather than being “taught.”
By the end of the day, one takeaway stood out: resilience is about mindset. It’s not if a breach happens, but when. Being prepared whether it be strong passwords, MFA, monitoring, and clear response plans or just understanding the risks makes all the difference. Or as one attendee put it, “You can’t find what’s wrong if you don’t know what normal looks like.”
Throughout an intense day of decision-making and strategy, delegates got a chance to unwind with a tour of the SS Great Britain, a fitting backdrop for a day about resilience and innovation.
The feedback was overwhelmingly positive, and with such energy in the room, we’re already planning our next Cyber Breach and Resilience Workshop for the new year.
Because in the end, the more we talk, share, and prepare the stronger we all become.
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I just wanted to take a moment to personally thank IP Performance for all your help and guidance during our recent upgrade project. Upgrading all three of our production clusters was a huge undertaking, especially with the amount of traffic they serve and thousands of services they deliver. Achieving this with zero downtime was no small feat and your expertise and quick responses were absolutely crucial in making it happen. It really felt like you were part of our team throughout this process and were more than just providing support but indeed kind of taking ownership of all the challenges and issues we had during this migration which we couldn’t have done as smoothly without your support.
Khalid Kamal,
European Bioinformatics Institute
