Category: Tech

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Windows has access to a vast selection of free, paid, open-source, and proprietary applications. While you can find many of these in the bundled Microsoft Store, others are scattered across the different corners of the web. This makes app discovery slightly harder for even the savviest of users. As a result, many of us often end up using the same set of popular apps, such as Chrome, VLC, and WinRAR. However, there are so many more exciting and helpful apps that you can install on your Windows PC to take its performance to the next level or replace native functions, like a file explorer on steroids.

So, let’s take a look at five gems from the massive Windows app universe that should be installed on every PC. Our recommendations are suitable for most Windows users and enhance the operating system’s experience by either adding new functionality or by offering a better way of doing things than what’s available in Windows.

Everything

The built-in search on Windows isn’t the best and can take ages to find files. It’s also slow to index and extremely resource-heavy. An excellent replacement for this is Everything, which is a free-to-download app from Voidtools. It’s significantly faster than Windows search while being resource-efficient and easy to use. If you remember the file name, it’ll barely take a second to find your file.

Unlike Windows search, it only indexes the file and folder names, which makes the indexing process much faster, and the company claims it can index a million files in about a minute. Although it doesn’t index file content, you can specifically ask the app to find files featuring specific content, but that will take a lot of time as it has to index and search everything. Besides your computer’s contents, you can ask Everything to index your mapped network drives to search through them. Moreover, the app supports Boolean operators and wildcards for advanced searches.

Flow Launcher

Another useful addition to your Windows PC is Flow Launcher. It’s a more versatile alternative to Mac’s Spotlight Search for Windows that can help supercharge your Windows workflow by reducing your reliance on the Start Menu and File Explorer. It’s basically a quick launcher and search tool at its core, which you can trigger with a simple keyboard shortcut, such as Alt + Space, but it can do much more. It allows you to open apps, search for files, settings, bookmarks, and the web, run shell and select system commands, perform basic mathematical calculations, and more.

Interestingly, if you already use Everything for Windows search, Flow Launcher can leverage Everything’s index while giving you file and folder search results. You can also customize its look and expand its functionality using hundreds of community-made plugins. Some of the popular plugins include Steam search, Obsidian Notes, and GitHub notifications. Most importantly, Flow Launcher is free and open-source.

NanaZip

If you’re someone who frequently has to deal with archives, a good archive manager is an essential utility. While Windows 11 includes basic archiving and unarchiving capabilities, you can greatly expand them with NanaZip. It’s an open-source app that’s forked from 7-Zip, which is another popular archive management tool. It essentially wraps 7-Zip in an interface that’s designed for a modern Windows experience. It’s also free to download and use, and available via the Microsoft Store. Nanazip supports more archive formats in both creation and extraction than the built-in Windows solution.

For example, you can use it to create ZIP, 7z, TAR, GZ, XZ, BZIP2, and other archive formats, and it can extract RAR, ISO, WIM, and many others. It also has better encryption protocols, a dark mode, and context menu integration. Moreover, it’s faster than Windows at creating and extracting larger archives. In other highlights, it can split archives, select different compression levels, and more.

Microsoft PowerToys

Microsoft PowerToys is a set of tools and utilities designed for power users who are looking to get more out of their Windows experience. However, it can be an excellent addition to any Windows install, as it gives you immediate access to several utilities for which you would otherwise need separate apps. Some of its most useful tools include Command Palette — a quick launcher similar to Flow Launcher or Mac’s Spotlight, PowerRename, which lets you rename files in bulk, and FancyZones, which lets you create and customize window layouts for snapping windows.

There is also Peek for a quick preview of a file and Always on Top to keep a window pinned on top of other windows. Moreover, you get utilities like Advanced Paste, Image Resizer, Text Extractor, Color Picker, Screen Ruler, and Light Switch, which are pretty self-explanatory. There are many more such utilities and advanced options to help you increase your productivity and improve your workflow. PowerToys can be downloaded from the Microsoft Store for free.

Ferdium

Many of us use web apps on a daily basis, and it can quickly become a chore to manage them across browser tabs and dedicated containers on Windows. Fortunately, there is an app called Ferdium, which solves this problem by giving you a one-stop shop for all your web apps. It’s a free-to-download open-source tool, built as a fork of a similar app called Franz, which is focused on chat apps. 

Ferdium provides you with a single window, and you can seamlessly switch between different web apps in the same window, removing the need to deal with multiple tabs and open apps. It also supports using multiple instances of the same web apps for different accounts, workspaces for easy app management, and custom services if yours is not in their database. Additionally, there is a built-in To-do list panel and a password lock for security. In other highlights, Ferdium gives you the choice of creating an account to sync your services across devices or using it locally on a single machine.

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The UK’s broadband sector has quietly witnessed a tipping point as fibre-based connections direct to premises superseded kerb-side connectivity for the first time, according to analyst Point Topic, while two of the country’s leading independent broadband service providers (altnets) have geared up fibre offerings for businesses.

The Point Topic survey found that the UK broadband market overall regained momentum in the third quarter of 2025, adding 64,000 subscribers and returning to growth across a total base of 28.94 million lines. Most significantly, full-fibre (FTTP) adoption surged ahead at its fastest rate since nationwide roll-outs began, reaching 11.56 million connections and overtaking fibre to the cabinet (FTTC) for the first time, with the latter decreasing to 10.6 million.

Full-fibre coverage climbed to 79.5% of premises, with multi-network overbuild increasing sharply, and the analyst expects FTTP take-up, while strong, to stabilise over the next year as the early-mover surge eases. BT’s broadband provision division Openreach has expanded to 20.31 million premises and added 551,000 FTTP customers, while the BT Consumer division delivered a second consecutive quarter of growth.

Openreach saw its FTTP subscriber base rise to 7.65 million, while the Consumer division saw growth again for the second consecutive quarter, with 1,000 net broadband additions to reach 8.21 million. This figure excluded its Business segment, which had an estimated 576,000 connections.

Altnets were found to have collectively added 193,000 connections, lifting their FTTP base to 3.02 million, with leading altnet CityFibre posting what Point Topic called a “standout” 108,000 net adds as its Sky partnership went fully live, bringing its total base to 730,000.

Yet with FTTP now mainstream and competition intensifying, Point Topic warned that altnet pricing and operational models are facing increasing pressure, raising questions about how many can remain sustainable as take-up normalises and overlap with larger networks grows.

This dynamic notwithstanding, ITS and Zen Internet were switching on full-fibre networks for their respective growing customer bases.

Dedicated business full-fibre provider ITS has now rolled out its XGS-PON-enabled network across Newcastle upon Tyne and Glasgow, with connectivity services now live in both cities.

Glasgow marks the company’s first expansion into Scotland, with the network now ready for service for more than 7,000 business premises. Organisations across the city – spanning sectors including financial services, digital industries, life sciences and the creative sector – can access gigabit-capable connectivity, with coverage extending to key hubs such as the International Financial Services District, the Glasgow Riverside Innovation District and Merchant City.

In Newcastle, the network reaches over 4,000 business premises. It said the city has a higher-than-average concentration of large employers and a growing base of organisations in health, education and technology sectors, increasing demand for scalable, high-capacity services. Newcastle is home to hubs including Newcastle Helix, the National Innovation Centre for Data, and the Digital Quarter.

Meanwhile, Zen Internet has strengthened its direct business offering, claiming to be giving organisations across the UK more choice and greater coverage when it comes to the connectivity solutions available to them. 

Explaining its actions, the provider cited a survey it carried out in 2024, which found that 44% of businesses didn’t yet have a solution in place ahead of the ISDN switch-off and that 30% were still using ISDN despite the upcoming withdrawal of services, highlighting a clear readiness gap.

To address this issue, the launches include CityFibre’s Ethernet and FTTP Business products, as well as BT’s SoTAP (Single Order Temporary Access Product). The result, said Zen, was “a future-proof”, all-IP solution for businesses still on ADSL that are not yet in full-fibre or FTTC footprints. The expansion of its Business FTTP offering also builds on Zen and CityFibre’s long-standing partnership and comes as demand for business-grade fibre connectivity accelerates across the UK. CityFibre’s enterprise-grade Ethernet and FTTP services are now available to more than 260,000 UK businesses through Zen. 

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Opera Neon just got another big upgrade. The AI agentic browser now offers updated models, new features, and an all-new Deep Research feature that can produce structured reports in about a minute. Following Google’s introduction of the new Gemini 3 Pro and Nano Banana Pro, Opera now allows users to choose the AI model that they want to use when interacting with Neon Chat. As usual, customers can also switch models mid-conversation if they want to.

Besides that, Opera Neon now features Opera Deep Research Agent, which works alongside the Chat, Do, and Make agents to enhance user productivity. With that, Opera says you can transform your browser into a powerful research hub, as it “mitigates the need for manual searching by cross-referencing diverse sources.” 

“Opera Neon is our experimental playground that allows us to tap into the most cutting-edge AI technologies that exist on the web. We’re developing this product together with our community – at an extreme speed. The way Opera Neon’s AI engine is set up allows us to integrate the latest technologies barely hours after they become available,” said Krystian Kolondra, EVP Browsers at Opera.

Opera Neon now integrates with Google Docs

José Adorno/BGR

Opera also upgraded its Neon Do agent to be able to create a Google Doc. One of the most requested features, this allows Opera Neon users to integrate one of the internet’s most popular word processors into their workflows. The agent can create a Google Doc of virtually anything, such as one researching products and automatically creating a comparison document. To use this feature, users need to select the Do agent in the browser’s omnibox and write a prompt.

Unlike ChatGPT Atlas and The Browser Company’s Dia, Opera Neon is still limited to invited users as part of an early access program. While the Norwegian company is continuing to roll out access to more users, they still need to register on Opera Neon’s website to wait for a access. That said, the company offers a wide range of browsers for free as well, including Opera One and Opera Air.

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The UK and Ireland SAP User Group (UKISUG) Connect 25 conference has opened in Birmingham with a keynote session recognising the challenges business face.

The user group itself has adapted to changes in the technology market such as the advent of artificial intelligence (AI) in business applications and the economic climate that has a profound effect on its members’ ability to deliver value with enterprise technology.

In his keynote presentation, Conor Riordan, chair of UKISUG, said: “As an organisation, we have to change, to position ourselves as we move from the old to the new.”

The user group has a 2030 plan, recognising the shifts in enterprise software. For instance, there is the shift to no-code and low-code tooling, which has implications on the agility of enterprise software development. Riordan noted that the current business climate and geopolitical volatility means that there is a huge pressure to reduce costs, leading to cuts in training budgets and the challenge of delivering more with less, adding: “We need to have process change.”

Moving to a future where organisations are using data to make more dependable decisions, Riordan noted that SAP is moving to a dynamic ecosystem of applications and AI, but the challenge is how quickly businesses can start taking advantage of the AI now available in their business applications. “We see members say SAP AI will help them,” Riordan said.

But many are concerned how the new technology now available will deliver a return on investment (ROI). For Riordan, IT decision-makers need to be wary of tackling the so-called low-hanging fruit, the use cases that the industry sells to the executive team: “It is really complex work, and the low-hanging fruit is not that low hanging. It will take years, not months, to deliver value.”

A poll of delegates at the conference found that 78% of respondents are just getting started with AI, while 29% say their AI initiatives have under-delivered.

“This stuff is not easy,” Riordan said, adding that the challenge is one of process re-engineering and culture change, and that he believes humans need to be at the centre of decision-making. “We ask partners to be reasonable in their productivity claims so we can all succeed together.”

The Value of AI in the UK: Growth, people & data from SAP and Oxford Economics, which was published in October 2025, notes that customers are investing £16m in AI on average this year. The report’s authors predict this will increase by 40% within the next two years. However, the theme coming out of the keynote session at Connect25 is that few companies are really using AI.

Another big topic covered during the keynote is the end of support for SAP products. With SAP’s 2027 maintenance deadline for SAP ECC 6.0 fast approaching, many organisations are now embarking on their migration journey to SAP S/4Hana. More than half (54%) of respondents said that gaining access to SAP’s AI offerings will influence their future deployment of SAP.

Among attendees of Connect25, 49% said they are working towards the 2027 deadline. Riordan called on SAP to help customers to move to the cloud and build a tangible business case.

During her keynote speech, Leila Romane, managing director of SAP UK & Ireland, spoke about the AI opportunity, saying: “We are helping customers unleash new value with business AI.”

SAP’s strategy is to drive business value through the power of AI, data and its enterprise applications, with the SAP Cloud integral in SAP’s strategy to deliver AI-enablement across its enterprise software suite. Romane said SAP recognised that its customers were all at different stages of their cloud journey, adding: “Our commitment is to help you move.”

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Dominic Redmond, group CIO of recruitment firm PageGroup, is a digital leader driven by a desire to help his team and the rest of the business use data to boost operational processes and customer services.

Having started his career as a project manager, Redmond delivered major initiatives for Xerox and Aon that touched on the implementation of technology. As he increasingly focused on IT systems, his career trajectory changed, saying: “I blended large-scale transformations with IT early in my career, so that’s why I’m a technologist today.”

After working as head of strategy for brewer SAB Miller, in November 2016 Redmond joined FTSE 250 firm PageGroup – often best known by its Michael Page brand. He worked as an IT director and managed applications globally for the company before assuming the group CIO role in January 2021.

“I ran a major digital transformation programme and started to inherit other parts of technology until it became quite a natural segue into taking the CIO job, because I was running all the different pieces, and technology is a big opportunity in professional services,” he says.

As group CIO, Redmond has a global mandate to drive business performance through technology and data. He says there are many facets to that broad role, including engaging with disparate functions, overseeing information security, managing day-to-day operational IT systems, plus some gazing into a crystal ball.

“I look for opportunities to take advantage of modern technology and connectivity. Then you get into your business systems, and the fact that those platforms are what we ultimately use to engage with our customers, whether that’s clients or candidates,” he says.

“I also look to help drive productivity across our operations business, which is the people who sell and recruit. Those people are effectively the revenue-generating part of our business. The more we can give them the right tools, the more successful we are.”

Delivering service excellence

Since assuming the CIO role, Redmond has delivered a technology strategy and created a roadmap to a modern enterprise architecture. He believes one of his key achievements is that the rest of the company recognises his team delivers great services across the business, with the right levels of efficiency and excellence.

Redmond also points to the development of a culture of cohesiveness and collaboration, which promotes a strong sense of teamwork across the IT organisation. This sense of togetherness promotes connectivity within his team and helps build relationships with other people across PageGroup.

“If you lead a function, you want people in your team to be supported, to grow, to be engaged in their day-to-day work, and to want to come in and work with their colleagues. But it’s also important because so much of technology now is cross-functional,” he says.

“You have to have so many teams coming together, from infrastructure and cyber security through to architecture and the application side with your vendors. If you can’t do that work collaboratively and cohesively, you aren’t efficient in what you deliver.”

Now Redmond wants to build on these technological and cultural foundations to support further digitalisation. The aim here is to use data-enabled technologies, including automation and artificial intelligence (AI), to enhance workplace activities and boost employee productivity.

“This effort isn’t about the replacement of people,” he says. “This effort is about taking the work that our employees do that can be made easier through technology, or indeed made more efficient through technology, and allowing them to do the things that differentiate us as an organisation. That’s where the context of any digital, data, AI, or technological transformation should always be grounded.”

Integrating enterprise systems

Redmond has built a technology stack that uses a range of big-name providers, including Salesforce, Microsoft, NetSuite, and ServiceNow. One of the things he was keen to help the organisation move away from was unconnected spot solutions that solved one challenge at a point in time.

To bring a stronger sense of direction and cohesion, Redmond has worked with Boomi, using the supplier’s platform to integrate services and data. He says the result is a joined-up approach to enterprise technologies where Boomi helps to integrate more than 150 applications across the business.

“Boomi also allowed us to create a data lake, which initially started with the finance information in our NetSuite system,” he says. “However, this success quickly allowed us to bring in operational data on performance, KPIs, and metrics, and that has grown over several years, because we got our approach to integration right at the start.”

“This effort is about taking the work that our employees do that can be made easier through technology…and allowing them to do the things that differentiate us as an organisation”

Dominic Redmond, PageGroup

PageGroup started working with Boomi in 2016 after a procurement exercise. Redmond says the platform helps data flow around PageGroup. Today, the company uses Boomi to streamline day-to-day operations, including processing CVs, onboarding candidates, paying suppliers and managing employee expenses.

“Now, at every touchpoint when one system talks to another, we’re using Boomi to make that happen,” he says. “The technology is the way we move data around our systems. But, clearly, some of that is processing rather than just moving data. So, Boomi ingests our data and then moves it into different systems.”

These integrations allow PageGroup to process over one million CVs each month. Across all business processes, Redmond says Boomi’s integration platform creates a unified view of data. He’s now considering other ways to use the technology, including taking a proactive approach to problem resolution in an age of AI.

“The other area, based on what I’m hearing and what we’ve already thought about, is, if we’re using this technology to integrate services, and we’re using agents in other systems, how far can Boomi go to be our control around identification, monitoring and governance? That’s something we’ll continue to consider.”

Delivering fresh experiences

In addition to using digital and data to enhance employee roles, Redmond is eager to use technology to enrich customer service. With millions of people seeking work in an increasingly competitive labour market, Page Group must focus on developing effective digital engagement processes.

“You want to do that work the right way,” he says. “Digital can’t just be a catch-all. It has to be something that feels like the digital channels are as personalised as possible. So, that’s the front end of a lot of what we do as a technology team.”

Redmond describes these efforts as a funnel through which digital technologies and human expertise guide candidates towards the best opportunities. As jobseekers engage with the company, they move through the funnel, focusing on specific openings and opportunities, some of which will rely on digital interfaces.Eventually, these individuals reach a point where they’re placed in a job, and there’s a high degree of human-to-human interaction at that stage.

“That’s how the technology and people come together as you go through the funnel,” says Redmond. “We’ve definitely got that cycle from digital, personalised interactions through to the more direct people-based interactions. That level of interaction can vary at different stages, but, in principle, that’s how it works.”

Redmond says the right digital approach helps to curate relationships with candidates so that they think of PageGroup as the first point of call for recruitment services now and in the future: “It’s about trying to home in on the essence of the person at the heart of what we do, and it’s supported by technology to enable us to work with as many people as we need to.”

Defining the CIO of the future

During the next few years, Redmond will work with his team to ensure that digital and data technologies are sourced to provide creative solutions to the company’s business challenges. While there’s ongoing debate about the future role of the digital leader, he says great CIOs always focus on delivery.

However, some issues will impact the responsibilities of IT chiefs, most notably the democratisation of technology. While the path to digital transformation in the past decade has involved line-of-business employees making more choices about IT, Redmond recognises that the level of democratisation has risen in an age of AI.

“I don’t think we’ve ever seen it like this before,” he says. “Finding ways to work cross-functionally, being more collaborative, working with that ambiguity, and trying to frame how you bring a business together in a more matrix way through technology is a different role from command and control, which is perhaps how the CIOs of 10 years ago were working.”

Redmond says successful CIOs of the future will embrace this engaged approach. Rather than being asked to build something and returning, potentially, with a solution that doesn’t overcome the challenge, digital leaders and their teams will work in harmony with business peers to develop data-enabled systems and services.

“There’s a lot of adaptability now, so there’s an adjustment for CIOs to make,” he says. “Also, things haven’t settled down. Generative and agentic AI are still at an embryonic stage. As that area of innovation becomes a little bit more settled, the future role of the CIO will become clearer.”

While there has been significant hype about generative and agentic AI during the past few years, Redmond recognises that many organisations, including his own, have established interests in using AI, particularly machine learning. The role for CIOs now is to consider how this confluence of advances produces business value.

“If you look at the way we run CRM campaigns through our digital teams, they’re using data intelligence and algorithms to find out how to give people the most personalised content that’s going to engage them in the best way. That is not a new approach; that’s been around for a while,” he says.

“Then, of course, there’s the day-to-day processes around how the business uses GenAI tools, such as Microsoft Copilot. CIOs must consider how to use those systems effectively. There’s lots of stuff going on, and it’s about homing in on areas that are going to add the most value.”

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Data is critically important to almost any business – it’s the lifeblood that makes an organisation function. But managing, leveraging and realising the commercial advantage of data is also hard. 

If fully leveraging data is difficult enough, the bar is only getting higher – with AI changing the game. Traditionally, approaches to data have been through a systems-focused lens, ensuring that the systems a business operates on have the requisite data flowing through them. But now, the task has moved to ensuring that data is AI-ready. This means that it needs to be properly tagged so that AI applications know what the information is, where it came from and how it has been used before. This enables the AI to understand what the data signifies without having to interpret it for itself. Without this, the AI might guess incorrectly, leading to mistakes, unintended consequences and even hallucinations.

 In the AI age, robust data governance has bever been more critical. Organisations need clear policies, rigorous standards and well-defined processes to ensure data quality. Equally important is the systematic management of data throughout its lifecycle, including consistent curation, secure storage and management so that data remains accurate, reliable and fit for advanced analytical and AI applications.

Building the data team

All of this means that having the right data team in place is imperative. However, it has also led to increased competition in the market for professionals with advanced data skills and experience. Clarity over the team and roles you are trying to build is therefore essential. So, what does a ‘data dream team’ look like?

 In our experience, both from the recruitment side servicing the market and as a data practitioner building and running a team, you have to get the data team right, along with the necessary data processes and structures, before you can even think about pushing far into AI.

 Several roles are critical. Firstly, data engineers are fundamental because they set the processes to collect, manage and store the data for the business to use; they lay the foundations. Data architects ensure that the data flows and connections between systems align to business needs, and can be properly scaled and supported. Then, skilled data scientists and data analysts use the data to draw out actionable insights including applying AI techniques and potentially starting the evolution towards machine learning and automation stages. BI (business intelligence) analysts also play an important role by bringing a business/sectoral lens to what the data is showing. As a business becomes more mature with both data and AI, the need develops for AI/ML engineers to design intelligent systems using the data flows created.

 Another key emerging role is what one might describe as a ‘data translator’ or perhaps a ‘data solutions engineer’. These individuals form the link between the data team and the business, acting as a conduit to help translate the insights from the data into business actions that can be taken. This demands both technical skills and knowledge, and business acumen and understanding. It’s a role that often gets overlooked, although more businesses seem to be realising that it’s a vital part of the puzzle.

 It is worth noting that these roles are all in high demand, and can be hard to fill. As a result, data-related salaries have jumped significantly in the last 18 months or so. Whereas many tech role salaries have only risen at or around the rate of inflation, some data roles have put on perhaps 15-20%. A good analyst may command somewhere in the region of £70-90k, engineers and scientists perhaps £80-110k, while an accomplished data translator/solutions engineer could attract £120k or more.

 As can be seen from the above, a good data approach is about having a multi-discipline team comprised of different roles, working closely together. Therefore, it’s by no means simply about finding people with the right technical skills – cultural fit within the team and the business should also be key considerations. As so often the case, it’s as much about the people as it is about the technology. Businesses shouldn’t expect to assemble the right data team overnight. It’s an organic and incremental process that can take perhaps 12-18 months to fully reach fruition.

 The leadership question

Then there is the issue of leadership: who should take executive responsibility for data and the data team? Most businesses have a Chief Data Officer or equivalent (Director of Data or Head of Data etc) – the key question is where this individual sits in the management hierarchy. In an ideal world, the head of data would be on a par with the heads of technology and product, and have a seat in the boardroom. In practice, this is often still not the case – but is something that we expect will change in the coming years, especially with the continuing march of AI. There are other variations. For example, in companies undertaking large-scale implementations of AI, we sometimes see a Chief Data Officer working alongside a Chief AI Officer, but in some businesses the two roles are merged into one. There are no ‘right’ answers here – it really is down to the individual dynamics within an organisation.

Finally, it is also crucial to realise that data is not only a matter for the data team: everyone is a data user. Therefore, data literacy across the business must be on the agenda, with training and resources available to help everyone increase their data competency and confidence. Only in this way will you fully realise the benefits of all the work you have put in to make high quality, granular and relevant data flow around the organisation, feeding business decision-making and unlocking commercial returns.

Jack Capel is UK south director of Harvey Nash. Adam Asprey is director of Data at Maximus UK. 

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Cyber attacks are a constant in the IT press, but every now and again they cut through to the front pages of national newspapers and evening bulletins. The recent attack on Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) gained international attention due to the combination of its recognisable name and the wide-ranging effects.

The fallout from this incident is likely to continue for months, and probably years. With car production halted for over a month and over 5,000 businesses affected, the Cyber Monitoring Centre has estimated a financial impact of £1.9bn, and likely “the most economically damaging cyber event to hit the UK”. The shutdown meant that the number of cars manufactured in September 2025 was the lowest in the UK since 1952.

Reportedly, JLR had “failed to finalise” its cyber insurance cover ahead of the attack and will bear a great deal of this cost. The UK government has underwritten a loan of £1.5bn to JLR to support the company and, crucially, its supply chain.

Undoubtedly, approaches to cyber security will be top of the agenda in boardrooms across the country, as leaders devise plans on how to avoid a similar fate. Chief financial officers (CFOs) and finance directors have likely been asked about levels of insurance coverage, while chief information security officers (CISOs) will be under pressure to strengthen security practices.

Big news stories can shift attitudes. There’s no doubt that insurance vendors and brokers are using this moment to promote their products, but can cyber security teams also use it to help their businesses be better prepared?

A tipping point in perception?

Previously, a business case for digital transformation would be focused on the costs and benefits. Now, security risks are likely to be scrutinised more closely.

Security teams will have a vital role in determining just what this greater awareness of cyber security risks will mean. While it needs to be understood that cyber security threats are very real and can have massive consequences if they are successful, it’s important for businesses to strike a balance, exercising caution rather than being paralysed by fear. The message communicated to the wider business will be key in making sure risks are understood and the right precautions are taken, but not in a way that will stop innovation.

It is also an opportunity to communicate the need for layers of security. It’s not as simple as strong passwords and multi-factor authentication (MFA), but an end-to-end resilience approach is needed to keep a business safe. Cyber insurance can be thought of as one of those layers.

Getting cyber insurance right

Thanks to a greater awareness of cyber insurance, and the risks of not holding it, many businesses will be rushing to check their coverage. Even before the JLR shutdown, cyber insurance was one of the fastest-growing sectors in the global insurance market. Despite this growth, the FCA has warned that the UK is “potentially massively underinsured” against the cyber risks it faces.

For SMEs, cyber insurance policies are often bundled within broader business protection packages, but the terms for payout can be complex. Insurers will, as they do with any claim, scrutinise the business to ensure the policyholder had sufficient safeguards in place at the time of the incident. If those controls were lacking i.e. if the business failed to maintain up-to-date software, lacked MFA, or had poor backup practices, then the claim may be reduced or rejected altogether.

It is, again, the responsibility of cyber security teams to educate the business on how cyber insurance works and what changes may be necessary to make sure a policy is valid. While businesses may understand this principle for other forms of insurance, for example, a fire insurance policy may not pay out if a business holds an impromptu indoor barbecue for its staff, the requirements for cyber insurance may not be so obvious.

Insurance requirements as a guide to better security

Cyber insurance can, in fact, be used to get businesses on the right track when it comes to cyber security requirements. For example, two-factor authentication can often be unpopular with employees who see it as unnecessary, or who have bad experiences as consumers. But if 2FA is a requirement for cyber insurance, then that makes objections easier to overcome. What may be seen as optional before, despite the urging of the security team, will become embedded.

Of course, insurance requirements are not a complete guide to cyber security needs, but for businesses that are lacking in security, they can be a useful guide to help progress and to win internal arguments. Again, this is about using the moment correctly, with minds focused on cyber security, it’s an opportunity to build a better security culture and help everyone in the business understand their shared responsibility.

Fear vs. focused minds

Cyber security teams have a window of opportunity to get their businesses on the path to better security. It’s a rare occasion when those who care about security find that the rest of the business is thinking about the same problem.

While businesses are reflecting on how they can make sure they do not become another headline, security teams should be on hand to offer guidance and counsel, and can set the tone for how to approach the issue. While fear is a great motivator, this is really about striking the right balance, educating on potential threats and how they can be prevented. Insurance is but one piece of the puzzle.

For businesses where security is lacking, these conversations have the potential to be an inflection point, leading to better security. With minds focused on the need to avoid disaster, experts can be the voice of reason and help keep their businesses safe.

Robert Johnston is general manager of Adlumin at N-able.

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If 2024 and 2025 were the years organisations felt the strain of tightening budgets, 2026 is the year those decisions will fully manifest in their cyber risk exposure. Across both the private and public sectors, years of belt-tightening have led to reduced headcount, ageing infrastructure and postponed modernisation. Analyst reports show growth in cyber security spending has slowed markedly and many security teams are operating with fewer specialists than they had three years ago. The cumulative effect of this means fewer defenders, slower detection and weakening resilience at a time when adversaries are escalating in both ambition and sophistication.

The past year has provided irrefutable proof of how these gaps translate directly into risk. A major supply-chain compromise of Oracle Cloud reportedly exposed millions of records and impacted more than 140,000 tenants. The Salesloft/Drift breach illustrated how attackers can exploit interconnected SaaS ecosystems to cascade access across multiple organisations. Meanwhile, Jaguar Land Rover’s cyber incident halted vehicle production and disrupted supply chains for weeks, demonstrating how even relatively mature, well-funded industries can be brought to a standstill by a single compromise. These incidents reveal a systemic weakening of defensive capacity and third-party oversight.

This is the backdrop against which 2026 begins, and the legacy of recent budget cuts will continue to degrade the defensive posture of many organisations. With smaller teams and constrained resources, adversaries will enjoy longer dwell times, greater freedom to move laterally and more opportunities to exploit unpatched systems. Supply-chain compromise and zero-day exploitation will remain primary attack vectors, especially in environments where patch cycles have slowed or asset inventories are incomplete. Compounding this is the fact that several national cyber bodies have themselves faced funding and workforce reductions, limiting their ability to coordinate incident response at scale. In short, the high-impact attacks of 2025 should not be viewed as peaks, unfortunately, but as early indicators of a worsening trend.

However, budget pressure is not the only factor reshaping the threat landscape. A parallel shift is emerging that is driven by a rise in what might be termed casual cyber aggression, outside the more predictable threats such as nation states or organised crime threat actors. Across the UK, several high-profile incidents in 2025 have been traced back to loosely affiliated individuals, often teenagers, wielding commodity hacking tools, rented botnets and downloadable exploit kits. These attackers are not motivated by complex financial schemes or geopolitical goals, instead drawn by curiosity, frustration, social validation or the mere thrill of notoriety.

This behaviour is being fuelled by two converging forces. First, the accessibility of attack tooling has increased dramatically. Automated scripts, ransomware-as-a-service platforms and AI-driven reconnaissance tools require minimal technical expertise, lowering the barrier to entry. Second, the volume of open source intelligence, from corporate data leaks to overshared social media profiles, has exploded. Executives, public figures and organisations leave digital footprints that can be assembled into highly persuasive social engineering campaigns. For would-be attackers, the pathway from idea to impact has never been shorter.

What appears to be eroding at the same time – maybe due to the frequency of attacks or complacency – is the perceived risk of consequence. Arrests and prosecutions for cyber offences remain rare relative to the scale of attacks; and within online communities where many of these individuals operate, reputation and bravado often outweigh caution. Combined with social disaffection and worsening economic pressures, hacking is becoming, for some, a form of digital expression by offering an accessible outlet with very real-world repercussions and very little perceived consequence.

In 2026 that will translate into an expectation of more erratic and attention-grabbing attacks by small groups or individuals using widely-available tools. While these incidents may lack technical sophistication, their public visibility and collateral impact, particularly when they target public services, transportation networks or major consumer brands, will make them strategically significant. They also risk eroding public trust in digital services at a moment when that trust is already fragile.

Of course, it wouldn’t be a look ahead without the mention of the rapid evolution of artificial intelligence in cyber security on top of everything. Back in 2020, predictions that AI would reshape defensive strategies seemed optimistic; today, they look understated. By 2025, an IBM report revealed more than two-thirds of organisations reported using AI in their cyber security programmes and nearly a third rely on it extensively. AI now underpins anomaly detection, automated response, threat-hunting and vulnerability management. But cyber criminals have adopted it just as aggressively. Research suggests that the majority of email-based attacks now incorporate AI, and AI-assisted ransomware campaigns are becoming the norm.

Generative AI has made it far easier to craft targeted phishing emails, credible social-engineering scripts and realistic deepfake impersonations. For high-value targets such as CEOs, the oversharing of personal and professional information online materially increases risk. And the growing maturity of agentic AI, those autonomous systems capable of multi-step tasks, introduces both powerful defensive opportunities and new avenues for attack.

Taking all of this into account, three trends stand out.

First, the knock-on effects of underinvestment will continue; i.e. fewer breaches overall, but those that do occur will be larger, more complex and more damaging due to longer dwell times and interconnected supply chains.

Second, casual cyber aggression will become more visible, testing societal resilience and challenging policymakers to rethink digital accountability.

Third, the AI arms race will accelerate on both sides, with defenders and attackers deploying increasingly autonomous systems, driving the next stage of the cat-and-mouse dynamic.

It’s fair to say that 2026 will not necessarily be the most catastrophic year in cybersecurity but it could be one of the most telling. The choices organisations make now, in restoring investment, rebuilding cyber skills and governing AI responsibly, will determine whether the curve bends towards resilience or further fragility.

Anthony Young is CEO at Bridewell, a managed security services provider working in the UK and US.

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Gunnar Glasneck, data workstream lead at tobacco company, Imperial Brands, describes his role as the data tower lead. He is responsible for data migration, as well the implementation of the company’s SAP analytical cloud.

Computer Weekly met up with Glasneck during the UK and Ireland SAP User Group (UKISUG) conference in Birmingham at the start of December to discuss the role of strong data management in successful SAP S4/Hana projects.

The company has grown through acquisition. This resulted in 50 or so ERP systems in operation, which were not truly integrated. Imperial Brands recognised it needed to bring all of these legacy ERP systems together into one single S4/Hana instance.

Understanding data has been a key factor in Imperial Brand’s successful S/Hana deployment. But as Glasneck notes, this was the toughest aspect of the project. It required blending capable people from the business and functional consultants and analysts. “I selected three people from business who are at ease with data,” he says. But this can be a challenge. “The topic of data ownership is difficult to implement if you don’t have a data culture,” Glasneck adds, which means there is a lack of data ownership in the business.

What is interesting from the conversation with Glasneck is that the company selected the UK and Ireland, one of its five primary markets, to deploy S/4Hana.

When asked why take this risk, Glasneck says: “I wouldn’t say it was a simple decision. Our ambition was to design a global template, keeping the core clean. But if you start with an easy factory, with say, two or three production lines, or a simple market, then you won’t get to the state where you have a global template, or at least a significantly advanced template which you can then roll out then to the other markets and factories.”

Looking at the approach the company has taken in terms of getting its data ready for S/Hana, he says: “We’re migrating data and this data needs to be validated by the business and approved. It is always difficult to convince people in the business that they own the data and they need to understand it.” 

He says data was organised into three functional towers: global supply chain, finance and commercial. The people responsible for these data towers were provided with functional capabilities, which included data analysts  and people from within the business.

“This enabled us to understand and profile the legacy data,” says Glasneck, which helped with data cleansing exercises as well as data mapping and documentation.

Having a hand-picked team from the business who knew local business processes and recognised the value of optimising and standardising processes, combined with system integrator consultants providing functional S4/Hana expertise, were key to the project’s success. Glasneck says: “We had a strong governance structure. The processes are always owned by the business and through the governance with our business design authorities and technical design authorities, we were able to present a design that was approved by the business.”

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The company behind open source satellite internet protocol Spacecoin has announced it has successfully launched three satellites aboard a rideshare mission from Vandenberg Space Force Base in the US.

Designed to be an alternative to Starlink to provide global connectivity without relying on centralised providers or traditional ground infrastructure, Spacecoin is claimed to be the world’s first decentralised physical infrastructure network (DePIN) enabled by low-Earth orbit (LEO) satellite constellations.

Built to serve as the open protocol for permissionless, global internet connectivity, Spacecoin uses blockchain-enabled nanosatellites to deliver censorship-resistant internet access around the globe, with an initial focus on underserved and remote regions.

The satellites are owned and operated by STI, which holds the necessary regulatory approvals for satellite operations, and integrated on the mission via Arrow Science and Technology. Spacecoin functions as the underlying protocol that governs the open satellite data network, managing authorisation, authentication and accounting across the decentralised infrastructure.

The three CTC-1 satellites follow and take advantage of insights gained from the inaugural CTC-0 mission launched in 2024, which is said to have served as a proof of concept, pioneering the transmission of an encrypted blockchain message from Earth to space and back with verified payload integrity. Another claimed result is to have demonstrated that blockchain operations can maintain their security and functionality through space-based communication.

STI says the launch marks the first time a blockchain protocol has been integrated into a satellite constellation designed specifically for decentralised internet infrastructure, backed by proprietary technology with issued and pending patents.

CTC-1 is attributed with advancing to the critical next phase of validating two key capabilities essential for decentralised satellite internet: uninterrupted user connections as satellites move across the sky in low-Earth orbit, and direct satellite-to-satellite data exchange with minimal ground station dependence. The mission will take what is called “a definitive step” towards establishing the open architecture standards essential to assure interoperability in future satellite constellations.

Furthermore, STI says the successful validation of these inter-satellite capabilities will enable connectivity demonstrations with multiple government and telecom partners who have already signed agreements and committed to testing Spacecoin’s decentralised satellite internet infrastructure in real-world conditions.

“This launch marks the next frontier for decentralised connectivity,” said Tae Oh, founder of STI. “With multiple satellites now in orbit, we’re proving that internet services need not be centralised, making connectivity permissionless and impossible to switch off. This is a step toward a world where everybody, everywhere has access to the basic human right of internet access.”

To demonstrate the benefits of a decentralised communication architecture for users, the Spacecoin ecosystem is also developing Starmesh, a decentralised VPN that allows users to experience how private, anonymous and encrypted internet browsing will operate across distributed networks. Early Starmesh prototype testing is expected early-mid 2026, focusing on privacy and security advantages.

As the Spacecoin protocol ecosystem expands beyond initial partnerships, the project is actively seeking new collaborations with governments, telecom operators and institutional stakeholders worldwide.

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