Scotland’s leading cyber and fraud hub is to become a social enterprise as part of its commitment to providing affordable and accessible cyber skills to Scottish businesses.
Cyber and Fraud Centre – Scotland will change from being a not-for-profit organisation into a social enterprise, ensuring any profits made through professional services are reinvested into causes that align with its existing values and culture.
The move will also enable the centre to champion a shared purpose of creating ‘lasting and positive change in the world of cyber, with trusted partners and clients, in an affordable, relevant and accessible way’.
Jude McCorry, CEO, said: “ “Since its inception, the core belief of Cyber and Fraud Centre – Scotland remains the same – to be a socially driven organisation delivering accessible, affordable and relevant cyber and fraud services. That’s why we’ve made the step change to become Scotland’s only cyber social enterprise.
”I am very proud of all the work we do with every member of the team and the trusted partners that we collaborate with. We could not achieve all this on our own and are very lucky to work with like-minded people who share and support our vision, with more exciting collaborative projects coming in the future. Our dedicated team protects organisations nationally with our offering on professional services, skills and community building.
“By reinvesting in our cyber and fraud community, we ensure that all private, public and third sector organisations we work with have access to our people and resources to stay secure.”
The organisation, which delivers testing, Cyber MOT and executive education programmes, as well as the National Cyber Security Centre’s Exercise in a Box workshops, has already delivered a raft of outreach and charitable activities, including:
- Taking approximately 800 calls into its cyber incident response line from businesses and helping organisations such as Arnold Clark, Western Isles Council, Scullion Law and SEPA through significant cyber-attacks.
- Working on over £30million of fraud related calls, with over £13million stopped or returned to the client.
- Setting up the Cyber and Fraud Hub charity in 2024 with the purpose of looking after individuals who have fallen victim to cyber and fraud crimes.
- Employing over 50 part-time ethical hacking students from Abertay University to work on exercising, training and testing, giving them the opportunity to gain practical experience in the field while studying.
- Providing support to charities including Street Soccer, Edinburgh Remakery, Glasgow Golden Generation and Medics Against Violence with training and testing, at low cost or no cost to them.
- Working with girls of school age to break down stereotypes in the sector and encourage them to aspire to a career in tech, as well as sponsoring the Cyber First Girls competition.
- Organising Cyber-Scotland Week 2024 as an in-kind project to Scottish Government, successfully delivering over 160 events.
- Providing 1000s of hours of free training and advice to organisations of all sizes, helping them learn how to identify, respond to, and prevent cyber fraud.
Paul Atkinson, chairman of the Cyber and Fraud Centre – Scotland, added: “Becoming a social enterprise represents a natural step in the evolution of the support the Cyber and Fraud Centre – Scotland provides and reflects a broader vision of combining purpose and profit to benefit the wider community.
“Now, as a member of Social Enterprise Scotland, this new mission-led approach ensures that our work benefits both our clients, and society as a whole. A good example is our work with Street Soccer Scotland where the team has supported fundraising efforts and helped to strengthen the charity’s cyber posture, giving them a secure base to grow and continue to help those who need it most.”
Any organisation that finds themselves a victim of cyber or fraud crime can call the Centre’s Incident Response Helpline for free on 0800 1670 623 for confidential advice and support on next steps.