What happened
This week, the head of GCHQ warned that Russia is relentlessly targeting the UK and Europe through cyber activity aimed at critical infrastructure, democratic systems, supply chains and public trust. The message was blunt: the UK is operating in a “new era of radical uncertainty” where hostile-state cyber activity is not occasional it’s persistent and escalating.
You don’t need to be a utility provider or a government department to be exposed. Most organisations sit inside a wider ecosystem: software suppliers, outsourced IT, estates and FM providers, payroll, call centres, logistics partners, or shared data platforms. That ecosystem is exactly where sophisticated attackers look for the easiest route in.
Why it matters
For leaders, the big shift is this: cyber is now a continuity risk, not just an IT risk. The types of attacks associated with hostile states and state-aligned groups often focus on disruption, intelligence gathering, and undermining trust not just quick financial gain. In practice, that can look like outages, degraded services, manipulated data, and “slow burn” compromises that sit unnoticed for months.
There’s also a governance point that many organisations still miss. When the threat environment changes, the standard of “reasonable steps” changes too. Boards and senior teams are expected to keep pace with evolving risk, particularly where services are public-facing, regulated, or safety-critical.
And incident reporting expectations are tightening. The UK is already moving toward clearer, more streamlined reporting expectations for cyber incidents in regulated environments, with the intention of improving national visibility and coordinated support.
What good looks like
Good cyber resilience is not one big project. It’s a handful of fundamentals, executed consistently, with evidence:
- Know what you’re defending
Asset inventory that’s real (endpoints, servers, cloud services, key suppliers) and tied to business-critical services. - Close the “easy doors”
Strong identity and access management, MFA everywhere practical, removal of stale accounts, and tight admin privileges. - Patch with purpose
A routine that prioritises internet-facing systems and high-risk products, with clear ownership and proof of completion. - Assume compromise, design for recovery
Offline or immutable backups, tested restoration, and the ability to rebuild core services quickly. - Detect early, respond fast
Logging, alerting and a rehearsed incident playbook that names who does what—technical, legal, comms, and leadership.
What to do now
Small organisations and SMEs
Focus on the basics that reduce 80% of avoidable risk: MFA, patching, protected admin accounts, and backups you can actually restore. Tighten supplier access (especially remote support) and keep an incident contact list that’s current.
Mid-sized organisations
Add service mapping: identify the 5–10 services you cannot afford to lose (payments, dispatch, bookings, patient/client records). Build recovery targets (RTO/RPO), test restorations, and run a tabletop exercise that includes leadership decisions, not just IT steps.
Public sector, health, education, and regulated providers
Treat cyber as part of operational resilience. Ensure clear reporting lines, audited evidence of controls, and supplier assurance for any shared platforms. Align incident handling with your governance and reporting duties so you can act quickly and defensibly when something happens.
Critical and high-impact services (utilities, transport, major estates, large supply chains)
Go beyond baseline controls: segmentation, stronger monitoring, independent assurance, and red-team style testing where appropriate. Validate third-party risk because many major incidents begin through suppliers.
How TPMG helps
TPMG supports organisations that need cyber resilience with proof, not promises. That includes cyber and data assurance reviews (what’s working, what’s weak, and what evidence you can produce), practical remediation plans, supplier and access-risk controls, and incident recovery support helping you stabilise operations, protect data, and restore services with clear decision support for leadership.
