The level of legacy debt varies widely across the NHS and a recent report from the Department of Science Technology and Innovation (DSIT) has revealed that legacy technology can range from as little as 10 to as much as 60-70%. This reliance on outdated systems presents a significant cyber security challenge, heightened by the fact that 15% of surveyed organisations could not estimate the size of their legacy estate. The report also highlights that these systems are high-risk, prone to security vulnerabilities, lack support, and subject to operational failures.

Although the sector as a whole has traditionally been comparatively wary of the ever-increasing pace of technology, legal services are increasingly data driven, with an abundance of AI-related discussion emerging within legal technology circles. The core Document Management Systems (DMS) and Practice Management Systems (PMS) remain the centre of focus for how and where to deploy a variety of rapidly maturing SaaS platforms, or dedicated, highly customised suites.

To Test or Not to Test? - When it comes to IT disaster recovery and remediation processes, regular testing is not a 'nice to have' - it's absolutely essential!

This isn't hyperbole on my part. You just have to look at the news on any given day. We've all heard the horror stories of organisations in both the public and private sectors experiencing prolonged downtime during disasters due to inadequate preparation, lack of testing, and the unsuitability of their legacy remediation processes and systems.

On the 18^th March 2024, the Information Commissioner's Office issued its updated guidance around the issuing of fines when organisations have been found liable for the integrity of their customers' or end users' data being compromised. It is already well-established now that failure to ensure critical data remains secure will result in costly fines, as we have seen repeatedly in multiple high-profile cases over the years.

With fundamental shifts in consumer behaviour, changing economic conditions, and a rapidly evolving regulatory environment, it's a challenging but exciting time for the UK's retail sector, and technology has a key role to play. In particular, advances in IT and networking solutions are empowering retailers to enhance their operational efficiency, improve the customer experience, and retain their competitive edge in an increasingly online and interconnected world.

The nature of AEC projects and the high volumes of sensitive data firms generate, transfer, and store on a daily basis make them a natural target for cyber criminals. Indeed, a recent Government study found that 5% of building firms have already fallen victim to some form of cyber-crime in the just a year, but that 26% of them still did not have adequate cyber security measures in place.

For some years now, Cloud adoption has been steadily on the rise across the UK's Finance sector, with organisations including banks, insurers, and investment firms phasing out increasingly cumbersome legacy systems in favour of more scalable, agile, and cost-effective infrastructure. Indeed, more than 48% of UK banking services are now built on Cloud infrastructure.