Network Security
Vulnerability Management
Privileged Access Management 
Endpoint Security
Threat Hunting
Unified Endpoint Management
Email & Collaboration Security
Contents:
The world in which there are three groups of people, technical, not technical and those in between, is dead.
AI just killed it, And if you’re a business leader still hiding behind “I’m not technical”, your time is up!
Who are these groups?
Well, the technical group are those who speak in acronyms, hide behind jargon, and roll their eyes when you ask a “simple” question. The non-technical group stay quiet, nod politely, pretend they understand, and hope nothing goes wrong. Those in between, although not technical, understand enough to question, challenge and make informed decisions.
Why People Ignore Cybersecurity (Even When They Know It Matters)
It’s not laziness. It’s certainly not stupidity. And It’s not even time.
It’s shame.
People avoid cybersecurity because they’re terrified of looking stupid. Ask someone where the best food is locally, they jump on their phone and near instantly come back with the best Thai, Indian, burgers, you name it!
Ask them to use MFA, instant panic.
They’d rather pretend everything’s fine than risk exposing what they don’t understand.
And the tech world hasn’t helped. Let me be blunt: for years, tech has been gatekept by people who liked knowing more than everyone else.
I’ve seen it first hand multiple times.
Years ago, I worked in a call centre. Some of the team would play a game: How long could they keep a caller waiting using made-up “technical issues”?
They’d say things like:
“Sorry, we’re just reconnecting the hypersonic 900 cable to the mothership…”
Ridiculous. But people waited and they didn’t challenge it. Why? Because they didn’t want to look stupid.
Tell them an elephant walked through the call centre? They’d push back. Tell them a fictional futuristic cable needs recalibrating? They’d wait all day.
The Moment That Changed Everything for Me
Back when I was a cyber detective, the cases that stuck with me weren’t the dramatic ones. They were the helpless ones.
The family who lost years of photos because their social media account got hacked and couldn’t be recovered. The band who lost access to their Facebook page, the page that brought them gigs, income, and a community. Gone overnight. The small business that woke up locked out of the very systems that kept them alive.
They weren’t grieving “data”. They were grieving a piece of themselves, memories, identity, reputation, imagery, belonging. The digital story of their life and work.
And here’s the truth I learned quickly:
If you’ve done nothing before the breach, there’s often very little anyone can do after it.
Like I said in my keynote talk at the CompTIA UK&I 2024 Community Meeting and Spotlight Awards in Birmingham, Prevention is better than cure, because cure isn’t guaranteed.
The Leadership Delusion
Business leaders are no different. They know their security is weak. They know MFA is missing. They know their password policy hasn’t been touched since 2012. But they stay silent. Because silence feels safer than admitting “I don’t understand this”.
Here’s the problem:
You can outsource tasks. You cannot outsource accountability.
AI Has Blown Apart the Old Hierarchy
For years, leaders have stepped into technical meetings already on the back foot. They brace for jargon. They wait for the moment they have to pretend they understand. They sit quietly, hoping the conversation ends before anyone notices they are lost. This is the hierarchy the tech world built: experts talk, leaders nod, nothing changes.
One moment from my days as a Cyber Essentials Plus assessor sticks with me. I was auditing a financial firm, and the owner joined the call ready to do whatever I told them. This is someone who, in their own business, makes complex financial decisions and leads with confidence. Yet here they were, reduced to following instructions like a new starter. Not because they lacked intelligence, but because they genuinely believed they were not capable of understanding cybersecurity. It was frustrating to watch. More than that, it was unnecessary.
It did not need to be that way. If that leader had taken the written findings I sent beforehand and dropped them into an AI tool, everything would have shifted. They could have asked, “Explain this like a business owner, not a technician.” They could have played with the ideas, asked follow-up questions, pulled apart the risks and understood the logic behind each recommendation. By the time we spoke, they would have arrived with clarity instead of anxiety. They would have pushed back on the points that did not fit their business. And, most importantly, they would have understood the why behind what they were doing, rather than treating the audit as a hoop to jump through.
AI does something that no checklist, training course or vendor presentation has ever managed. It gives leaders a private, judgement-free space to learn. They can explore, question, experiment and challenge without worrying about looking stupid in front of their team. It takes the pressure out of the room. It removes the dependency on the one technical person who used to hold all the power. It gives leaders the mental breathing room to actually lead.
And this is the real breakthrough. The shame that kept people silent, the intimidation that stopped them asking questions, the belief that “I’ll never understand this” has lost its grip. AI strips away the hierarchy and hands leaders the clarity they have always needed.
AI kills the shame by making leaders informed, confident and fully able to challenge, question and decide what is right for their organisation and the people who rely on it.
So Here’s the Hard Truth for Leaders
If you’re still saying “I’m not technical” as a reason to avoid cybersecurity, you will be breached. Not “might be”, Will.
Because the only thing standing between your business and disaster is the courage to ask questions and implement the basics. You don’t need to be a technical wizard. You just need to Start, Ask, Learn and Refuse to be intimidated.
If you can run a business, you can understand why MFA matters.
Where You Start
You can begin with MFA and strong passwords, but the real starting point is not technical at all. It is accountability.
When a leader finally decides to take cybersecurity seriously, something important shifts. They stop seeing cyber as a mess of jargon, blinking dashboards and tools they do not understand. They stop feeling intimidated by the IT person or the fear of asking a stupid question.
Instead, they experience something far more powerful: control. Not control over threats, because nobody has that, but control over themselves. They gain the confidence to understand enough to make informed decisions, the clarity to view digital risk in the same way they view financial or operational risk, and the authority to ask probing questions without feeling out of their depth. They are no longer dependent on someone else’s knowledge, ego or pay packet.
Leaders often expect accountability to feel like a burden, but the truth is that it feels like competence.
The morning after they take ownership, they do not become technical experts. They simply see the business differently. They stop treating cybersecurity as software and hardware and start treating it as risk. That single shift changes how they consume information, how they interpret impact and how they decide what matters.
So yes, turn on MFA. Yes, use a strong password. But understand this: your first step is not a technical step. Your first step is choosing to lead.
The New Leadership Standard
If you’re a leader today, you don’t need to be technical but you do need to be accountable and accountable leaders; ask questions, challenge assumptions, build culture and protect what matters
Because the digital world is now the real world and pretending otherwise won’t save you.
Start today. Your future self will thank you for it.
