Opinion — writing by Peter Bassill
Opinion
Commentary, retrospectives and the occasional argument. 7 articles
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Buying the breach: cyber due diligence, a board read
In a deal you don't just buy revenue — you buy the unpatched servers, the undisclosed incidents, and whoever is already inside the network. A board read on cyber due diligence: what's at stake, what to ask before signing, and why a court just put a PE sponsor on the hook.
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Quantum computing: the machine that doesn't exist yet
Does quantum computing really work, is the threat real, and is any of it viable? A straight answer: real physics, a threat deferred but already forcing your hand through harvest-now-decrypt-later, and a defence that is standardised, hybrid, and already running in your browser.
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April 2026, in retrospect
The worst single month for cyber attacks on record. 105 publicly disclosed ransomware incidents globally. The UK third by volume. Looking back at it with a week's distance, three patterns matter more than the count.
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In defence of writing the code yourself
On staying technical while sitting in chairs that don't expect you to be.
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What I got wrong
An honest account of the calls I have made in the past three years that did not land — what I was reading into the evidence that was not there, and what I would do differently.
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The year 2025 was actually about
An end-of-year reflection on what 2025 turned out to be, what the noise mostly was, and what the genuinely consequential shifts were for UK cyber security at board level.
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What the merger was actually for
Hedgehog Security and UK Cyber Defence merged this month. Here is the thinking the announcement did not contain — what we were trying to fix, and what kind of firm we are now trying to be.