With a 2016 remake of the 1984 Ghostbusters movie, I have a fair chance of ‘Who you gonna call?’ resonating with the majority of business decision makers

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So, I wanted to share a recent scenarios and ask who would you call if this happened?

A recent very wet Thursday evening, somewhere between 7 and 8pm, a lot of mud, a burst pile and a small army of local ‘neighbours’ (I live remotely) I had been ushered inside to take a break from the rain, and there was my mobile flashing a missed call.

and there was my mobile flashing a missed call

I listened to the voicemail and there was a business contact of mine who had left a message. Unusual time of night – I listened to the message and then called back immediately. A relations business had been hit by ransomware. This SME business was utterly paralysed and over $6m being demanded. They didn’t know what to do. Reaching out to friend and family for contacts, one who knew I ‘worked in Cyber’ had phoned on that wet Thursday evening within about 11 minutes of it happening.

This SME business was utterly paralysed and over $6m being demanded.


While my lovely neighbours thoughts I was taking a wee break from the storm and the burst pipe chaos, there I was quickly scrambling a cyber incident response team from my kitchen to help with this sadly increasingly common type of Cyber attack.

26 minutes later they were in the expert hands of help.

So – am I a cyber tech who knew what to do? – no.

Do I know where to find such people that will take out of hours calls and help immediately? – yes I do.

Do you? Who you gonna call?

Seriously – this was yet another SME – your organisation, I’m sure, has all sorts of incident response plans. I.e., flood, fire, death in service. But if you are on the Board, the Founder, the Owner, a Trustee or senior management – do you ensure that you and your team know who to call day or night if you were hit by a Cyber-attack? It’s seriously not as uncommon as you think for SME’s.

So – if you have my personal number in your phone you’re onto a good start. However – with a renovation project in the middle of nowhere and three young men masquerading as my children on my hands needing me sometimes – there are times when I may not see the missed call.

If you want to have a few numbers as options in your phone – get in touch and I can direct you to trusted companies that provide these services.

Seriously – If you want to have a few numbers as options in your teams phones – get in touch and I can direct you to trusted companies that provide these services. Get to know them now. It won’t cost you anything but a little time now, and boy will you be glad to know them. If, (or should I say ‘when’, let’s be realistic) the worst happens and I happen to be dealing with another burst pipe at the time – you’ll want a second option to call.

In addition, in the UK, you will find the growing network of Home Office supported Cyber Resilience Centres and associated Centres ready to help. Most have a recognised national scheme called Trusted Partners, many of which provide 24/7 incident response support. Find your nearest here UK Cyber Resilience Centre Network