The Isle of Man Government and Office of Cyber Security and Information Assurance (OCSIA) have recently updated their National Cyber Security Strategy to a version that sets a vision for the Isle of Man to work towards and achieve from now until 2027. The overall vision for the new strategy is for the Isle of Man to be considered a safe, secure, and resilient place in the digital world. As the Island is a renowned financial jurisdiction known for its business innovation, the overall awareness of cyber security is vital to sustain all future development.
The government alone can not solve the problem of cyber security, it needs to be a collaborative approach involving all stakeholders. For local businesses, this collaboration includes the approach of building and maintaining trust (between clients, employees, cyber/technology partners and institutional bodies), being accountable to the once ‘taboo’ threats of cyber security and being open about experiences to help one another learn and take corrective action to avoid any attack repetition.
The National Cyber Security Strategy has been set out by OCSIA to improve the Island’s cyber security posture through five priority areas.
To improve the Islands cyber space, an approach needs to be taken with residents to increase awareness and overall safety. This is not just limited to the workplace, with the principle also extending to all areas of everyday life.
To achieve this, everybody must be educated of their cyber risk and how to stay safe online. This is particularly applicable to those who are most vulnerable in society, including children and the elderly.
Citizens of the Isle of Man are being actively encouraged to report any suspicions through OCISIA’s Suspicious Email Reporting Service (SERS). In addition, OCSIA have a Cyber Concerns Online Reporting Form that allows the public to raise concerns about cyber-related issues like fraud, abuse/misuse of personal information or suspicious activity, find out more here.
The Island must be resilient in its approach to cyber security. This is because the cyber security threat is constantly increasing, and the approaches are ever evolving with cyber criminals targeting their victims in new and smarter ways.
To increase resilience, the Island needs to be responsive. This could be reflected through proactive work to defend against cyber threats or by being prepared to respond and recover from an incident. Island wide resilience is important to protect our Critical National Infrastructure, keeping these services going is critical to life on the Isle of Man.
An important element of this preparation for businesses on the Isle of Man is to have an Incident Response plan in place. An incident response plan, or contingency plan, works to decrease the impact of a cyber incident. For plans to be effective, they must constantly be reviewed to ensure that they are updated with the latest data and technology. With this, staff must also be continuously kept informed to give them the knowledge of what to do in the event of an attack.
As organisations on the Island begin to rely more than ever before on digital services, the risk of cyber threats is also heightened. The current and future workforce need to adapt to be able to respond to the threats facing the national digital landscape.
Within the next 5 years, the government aims to educate children through a digital-orientated curriculum to allow them to be ready for employment in a digital world. This goes hand in hand with encouraging the younger generation to consider a future in cyber security – an essential element to continue growing the Island’s workforce of local cyber experts.
There are many opportunities for parents to educate themselves and their children on Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) subjects (including cyber security) such as lovetech.im, a charity who hold various workshops and activities to encourage young people on the Isle of Man to consider futures in STEM.
As technology advances, cyber criminals are changing their techniques and increasing the frequency of their attacks. Phishing attacks (a common form of social engineering attacks) are becoming even harder to detect as criminals can access more and more personal information online to form convincing attacks. Being proactive and having measures in place to reduce the risk of a cyber incident is the best thing to do to stay ahead of this evolving threat.
Delaying the time it takes to report a cyber incident can subsequently cause large delays in the time-sensitive incident response process. In turn, this could result in a data breach, a loss of data and even worse. If businesses and individuals were to report and share information about their experiences, many others could learn from the impacts and be able to better prepare themselves.
Using a Security Operations Centre (SOC) to inform a security strategy is one of the most effective techniques to proactively prevent the risk of a cyber breach. A SOC works by protecting a business, or digital estate, from a cyber attack as the network is constantly being monitored for suspicious activity which can then be responded to and mitigated against before it has any impact.
With the Isle of Man’s interest on the global diplomatic stage it is important to maintain strong relationships and a healthy reputation. This principle highlights the importance for everyone to be held accountable and to take responsibility for their personal cyber security, for the better of the Island and its future.
To conclude, following the revised National Cyber Security Strategy is a great step forward for cyber security on the Isle of Man. Our team at Riela Cyber look forward to working with OCSIA and the Manx community to achieve and excel at the five priority areas to create a safer Island for all.
Click here to read the National Cyber Security Strategy in full.
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Kurt Schrauwen is a Director of the Riela Group of companies which includes Riela Yachts, Riela Cyber and Riela Tech.
Kurt brings more than 20 years of leadership experience having been an early part of the global success of Microgaming in becoming a market leader. Kurt was responsible for the commercial, contractual, and technical sales for Microgaming and with this experience will complement the company’s growth strategy.
Kurt is passionate about business optimisation and prides himself in having an intrapreneurial outlook to maximise staff potential, reduce inefficiencies as well as identifying and maturing revenue growth opportunities.
Paul Cocker joined the Riela Group in late 2021, after spending just under 20 years with his previous employer.
Paul is responsible for the Riela Tech service levels, working on both the dispatch function and SLA management. Paul carries out a variety of duties across the Network Operations Centre and works closely across the wider team to deliver professionally tailored solutions for our Riela Tech clients.
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Murat Guner joined the Riela Group in the Summer of 2021 as an Infrastructure Engineer.
Murat began his career in Turkey as a computer teacher for primary and secondary schools before migrating his skills into IT infrastructure. After honing his IT experiences throughout a colourful career path, Murat gained numerous qualifications which he is now excited to apply to the management of our Riela Tech infrastructure.
Andy is a qualified Network Engineer with in-depth knowledge of architecting, implementing and supporting networking solutions in the SMB, Enterprise and Service Provider environments.
He has over 20 years of experience working across multiple vendor operating systems, including Cisco, Juniper, Linux and Microsoft, and has also been responsible for implementing a variety of large scale network services deployments, taking projects from design to rollout and support.
Andy also has experience of deploying and migrating a range of virtualisation technologies including VMWare, Hyper-V and KVM based systems.
Email: andy@riela-cyber.com
Marc is our Group’s Infrastructure and Managed Services lead with over 18 years’ experience in delivering infrastructure projects across multiple industry verticals and international jurisdictions. From projects in Aerospace and Engineering through to Banking and Insurance, from Europe, China, Africa and Australia.
This experience is matched with a varied list of certifications from leading industry vendors such as Hp, Cisco, Microsoft, Ruckus, CompTIA and more. As a qualified technical trainer Marc is comfortably able to take complicated technical concepts and deliver them in simplistic terms to key decision makers and end users alike.
Most of Marc’s experience has been gained working for managed service providers, both large and niche and as such is able to take real world experience and blend it with industry standards to help align our service delivery with our clients values and processes.
As a Marketing Executive, Alex is responsible for all marketing duties spanning the Riela Group.
Alex joined the Riela Group in August 2020, shortly after graduating with a Psychology degree from Nottingham Trent University.
With past work experience in content marketing, event management and web design, Alex is able to apply her creative and analytical skills into the Riela strategy.
As the Head of Group Sales at the Riela family of companies, Matthew leads the company’s sales strategy, execution, and growth.
Matthew has a successful record building trusted client relationship and delivering upon set expectations. An accomplished sales leader, he delivers a sales process that provides clients with the information and support they need to make the right decisions for their organisations and their constituents.
Matthew has significant experience within the maritime industry having previously worked across various sectors including insurance, security, satellite communications and managed IT. Matthew’s most recent experience encompasses almost 5 years spent with the leading satellite communications and managed IT provider in the maritime industry, focusing on their superyacht clientele.
Christian is involved across the Riela family of companies with particular attention to the technology businesses, Cyber and Tech.
Christian gained a postgraduate Master in Finance degree at the University of Neuchatel, Switzerland and completed his MBA at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.
Before joining us, Christian worked for six years at Argosy Capital, an Isle of Man-based private equity and venture capital business focusing on early-stage growth businesses. At Argosy, he focused on managing investment companies, research and financial analysis and served as a director on several boards.
Robert Tobin is the Managing Director of the Riela Group of Companies and is responsible in overseeing our business operations, our people and driving excellence in all we do.
Rob brings over 25 years’ of successful leadership and entrepreneurial experience across a range of industries including Family Office, corporate services, construction engineering, Superyachts, cyber security and information technology development to our Group, and to our customers.
In the past 15 years Rob has gained a prominent reputation within the Superyacht industry for his passion, integrity, innovation and achievements to date.
“Being part of an awesome, capable and forward thinking team that have a shared passion for Superyachts, people and the environment is the highlight of my career and puts a smile on my face and a spring in my step everyday”.
Peter is an experienced technology consultant with a demonstrated history of working in the IT and cyber security industry. Skilled in Search Engine Optimization (SEO), IT Strategy, Start-ups, Regulations, and Online Gaming. Strong consulting professional with a DPhil focused in Natural Sciences from ChristChurch, Oxford.
Tim Bliss, Managing Director of Riela Tech since the company foundation in 2015 and Director of Riela Cyber, brings over 20 years’ of successful leadership experience across a range of industries including finance and banking, software development, and manufacturing, as well as cyber security and information technology. Prior to forming the company he led the technology for Manx Financial Group PLC, where he was instrumental in business systems transformation.
“It is our hugely capable team of experts that drives our business – it is fantastic and rewarding to be able to use technology, intelligence, and great customer service to help make our clients’ business and staff progressively more efficient resilient and secure”
