Partner Event with HCR Law: Ctrl+Z: What Happens When Cyber Goes Wrong (and It's Not Just an IT Problem)

​Everyone talks about cyber prevention. This session is about what happens AFTER something goes wrong – told as a real-time story. We walk the audience through a fictional (but painfully realistic) cyber incident hitting a Gloucestershire tech company, and at each stage we ask: "What would you do next?"

​The narrative covers:

• ​Hour 0: The breach – ransomware hits on a Friday afternoon (of course).

  • ​Who do you call first – your IT team, your insurer, or your lawyer? (Spoiler: the answer matters more than you think.)

• ​Hour 6: The regulator – you have 72 hours to decide whether to notify the ICO.

  • ​What counts as a "risk to individuals" and what happens if you get it wrong?

• ​Day 2: The customer calls – your biggest client wants to know if their data was compromised.

  • ​What can you say? What MUST you say? What should you absolutely NOT say?

• ​Week 2: The dispute – your customer terminates the contract, claiming you breached your data processing obligations.

  • ​Were you actually in breach, or are they using this as an excuse to exit a bad deal?

• ​Month 3: The claim – a group of affected individuals threatens legal action. What's the exposure

  • ​Can you recover from your supplier who left the vulnerability open?

​At each decision point, the audience votes on what they'd do, and we reveal the legal and commercial consequences of each choice. It's interactive, slightly nerve-wracking, and the whole point is that cyber resilience isn't just a technical issue – it's a legal, commercial, and reputational one.