Cyber Summit Leeds Programme

Headline Speaker Inside the Mind of a Fraudster: How Human Behaviour Fuels Attacks

Tony Sales-1

Tony Sales
Britain’s Greatest Former Fraudster

One of the few people in the world to have operated on both sides of cyber crime, Tony Sales, once dubbed “Britain’s Greatest Fraudster”, is now a leading authority on social engineering and cyber crime. In this keynote, Tony reveals the psychological tricks used in social engineering attacks. Expect real-world examples and candid insights. Tony brings the human element of cyber risk into focus. Delegates will leave with practical steps to reduce exposure and strengthen awareness across their organisation.

Leading Through Crisis: Executive Lessons in Response and Recovery

Joanne Morgan
IT Service Director at Gateshead

Cyber incidents are defining moments for leadership. This session offers a first-hand account of how Gateshead Council managed a serious attack, working across teams to protect core services, maintain public confidence and support employees through a period of uncertainty.

Joanne Morgan, IT Service Director at Gateshead, shares how priorities were clarified, how internal and external communication was handled, and how the experience helped to shape future strategy and organisational culture. The session highlights the structure, focus, and leadership that supported a successful recovery, along with the lessons that continue to influence the council’s approach to risk and resilience. This is a practical, senior-level perspective on responding to a cyber attack in a public sector context, where services must continue, scrutiny is immediate and the response has to hold up to both.

Security Maturity Check: How Secure Are You – Really?

Bob McKay
Cyber and Infosec Director at Aspire

How well is your organisation prepared to defend against today’s evolving cyber threats? In this interactive session, Bob McKay, Director of Information Security at Aspire guides delegates through the core pillars of security maturity, from identity and endpoint protection to response capability and user awareness. You’ll have the opportunity to reflect on your own organisation’s approach and see how it compares with wider industry trends. Drawing on patterns Aspire regularly sees across sectors, Bob will share practical observations, common pitfalls, and impactful steps that can help strengthen your security posture.

Lessons Identified: What Happens When The Cyber Dust Settles

Dr Zibby Kwecka, Chief Information Security Officer at Arnold Clark

In this session, Dr Zibby Kwecka, Chief Information Security Officer, shares what the aftermath of an attack and speed of recovery can reveal about an organisations cyber readiness and the effectiveness of its incident response. This will include lessons identified at Arnold Clark during a large-scale cyber incident in 2022, as well as first-hand insights of response and recovery from other enterprises breached by cyber criminals in recent years.

Ransomware Under the Microscope: A Forensic Investigation

Paul Abbott
Consulting Specialist and Former Director of KNP Logistics Group

Back by popular demand, Paul Abbott returns to our stage to reflect on the ransomware attack that led to the collapse of KNP Logistics Group: a 158-year-old organisation that entered administration following a major breach in 2023. In this session, Paul is joined by Aspire’s SOC team to examine the technical side of the incident. Through live “what if” scenarios, the SOC team will demonstrate how the attackers gained access, how containment might have been possible, and how recovery outcomes could have differed. With a combination of lived experience and technical insight, this session offers a rare look at the decisions, vulnerabilities, and lessons that matter most when everything is at stake.

Headline Speaker Real-World AI in Security: What Works, What Doesn’t (Yet), and Where All This Is Going

Ben Hanson
Senior Security Strategist and Advisor at Microsoft

AI presents a major opportunity for security teams to move beyond traditional reactive models and take a more preventative, proactive approach to protecting their organisations. In this session, Ben Hanson, Senior Security Strategist and Advisor at Microsoft, shares practical insight into what this shift looks like in the real world. He’ll cut through the hype highlighting what works, what doesn’t (yet), and where AI use in security is heading. He will also focus on the critical-but-overlooked human skills that are essential to making the most of AI. Expect honest insights, practical takeaways and ideas to help you get more value from AI, however your security operations are delivered.