People who regularly read my ramblings on this website will probably be aware that although I create a blog post about once every two weeks, I don’t often produce anything that might reasonably considered to be news. The main reason for this, of course, is that like many authors I spent most of my time locked away in a garret or a shed somewhere trying to persuade my brain to produce a story that can hopefully be wrestled into some sort of shape and eventually end up as a book. In my case it’s a small oddly shaped room on the third floor of the house.
But occasionally they do let me out, as happened just over a week ago when I attended the National Cyber Awards Ceremony 2021, a glittering black-tie affair held in a London hotel. I’d first encountered this event two years ago when I was a guest at the 2019 ceremony and ended up getting deeply involved with it. The 2020 event was a bit of a washout, thanks to Covid, and was performed electronically. But this kind of event always works better if there’s a live audience and live participants, and I’m delighted to say that this year’s extravaganza lived up to our most optimistic expectations. And not only did I go to the event, I even presented one of the prizes.
Briefly, one of the biggest dangers facing you and me and everybody else who owns a computer or a tablet or a smartphone or who has a bank account or holds any kind of financial investment, even a mortgage, is cybercrime. Occasionally you read about this kind of thing in the media, but the reality is that cyber criminals are working against all of us, all of the time. The National Cyber Awards Ceremony exists to achieve two things: it helps spread the word about cybercrime and the dangers that we all face and, equally important, it rewards those people who are trying to do something about it. People who are almost inevitably working away in the background, out of the media spotlight because what they’re doing isn’t considered newsworthy or sexy or shocking or pushes any of the other buttons needed to attract even a flicker of passing media interest. The people involved range from children still at school who are seizing the initiative to avoid themselves or their friends falling victim to cyber criminals all the way up to highly specialised units of British police forces that are often the first responders when some kind of cybercrime takes place, and of course the immensely talented white hat hackers, programmers and specialist individuals employed by companies who work behind the scenes to develop software programs and patches to frustrate the efforts of the cyber criminals, ideally before they can even get started.
Awards are presented in a number of different categories, from the cyber school of the year up to the cyber product and cyber company of the year, with the top award going to the cyber individual of the year, who is presented with a golden robot rather than the silver versions handed out to everybody else. Along the way It includes the award I presented, the cyber book of the year for 2021: Intercept by the journalist and author Gordon Corera.
