The era of cyberattacks being confined to a single industry is over. In 2025, the UK has been a battleground for a new wave of attacks, proving that a sophisticated threat can leap from a hospital’s network to a high-street retailer’s supply chain in a matter of days. The incidents at major UK brands like Marks & Spencer, Co-op, and Jaguar Land Rover are not isolated events; they are a collective wake-up call to the interconnected and escalating nature of modern risk.
For years, industries like financial services and healthcare were seen as the primary targets for cybercrime due to the sensitive nature of their data. While they remain high-value targets, the landscape has shifted. Today’s cybercriminals are just as motivated by the immense operational and financial disruption they can cause to a company’s day-to-day business. The attack on M&S, which caused an estimated £300 million in lost profits and halted online orders, demonstrates that the true cost of a breach is not just data theft but crippled operations and a rapid erosion of brand trust.
This new reality requires a new mindset. Organisations must move beyond basic security protocols and acknowledge that their biggest vulnerabilities may lie in their own trusted relationships—specifically, their supply chains and third-party vendors. The recent attack on Jaguar Land Rover, which led to a halt in production at key sites, is a stark reminder of how a security flaw in one area can have a cascading effect across an entire enterprise. The attackers in these cases often use sophisticated social engineering tactics, targeting the human element to gain access, making even the most advanced technological defenses redundant.
At #RISK Europe, we are bringing these urgent conversations to the forefront with a series of sessions designed for every professional responsible for navigating this new risk frontier. We are equipping leaders with the foresight and tools to transform risk into a strategic advantage and ensure that their organisations are resilient to the unforeseen.
Beyond the Checklist: Practical Strategies for Operational Resilience
For many organisations, resilience exists only on a spreadsheet. But as the incidents at M&S and JLR show, a crisis doesn’t arrive neatly. It’s fast, messy, and deeply public. The keynote, From risk registers to real readiness: building crisis leadership that works under pressure, is a must-attend session for any leader who wants to go beyond written plans.
Led by experts who have commanded crisis response in high-risk environments, this session will teach you how to build the “muscle memory” needed to make clear, coordinated, and accountable decisions when information is incomplete and time is limited. You will learn about predictable failure modes and how corporate leaders can adopt models used by the military and emergency services to ensure they are ready for the real thing.
The Human Firewall: From Compliance to Culture
Most cyberattacks succeed not by exploiting a technical vulnerability but by preying on human error. The attackers behind the M&S and Co-op incidents reportedly used social engineering to trick employees into providing system access. This highlights a critical need to view people not as a vulnerability to be managed, but as a critical line of defence.
Sessions like From Compliance to Culture: Embedding Risk-Aware Mindsets will explore how to build a culture of security that goes beyond mandatory training. You will learn to embed behavioral science into your risk strategy and empower every employee to become a proactive guardian of the organization’s security.
The high-profile attacks of 2025 underscore that a company’s reputation, financial stability, and operational continuity are now directly linked to its ability to manage these evolving threats. A decline in brand trust can happen in a matter of days, and recovering from it can take years.
By attending #RISK Europe, you can gain the knowledge, tools, and connections needed to build a resilient organisation that can withstand the pressures of a volatile world.
Join us to transform risk into a strategic advantage and ensure a safer future for your business and your brand.
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