Yesterday, James Gillies and Terry Walters explained why identity has become the new cybersecurity perimeter. Today, they turn to the next challenge: how organisations can build real resilience as threats become more sophisticated.
In discussion with Channel Eye, James Gillies, Head of Cyber Security at Logicalis UKI, and Terry Walters, Head of Digital Services at Highlands College, explore the gaps between security investment and effective protection, the risks of legacy systems and the growing impact of AI-driven attacks.
1. Many organisations invest heavily in cybersecurity tools but still struggle with resilience. What are the most common gaps you see between security investment and effective protection?
James Gillies explained: “One of the biggest issues is tool sprawl. Organisations often have dozens of security tools that are not fully integrated or used effectively. The challenge isn’t always buying more technology; it’s improving visibility, integrating telemetry, reducing detection times and ensuring organisations have the skills and processes to maximise the value of their investments.”
2. From the College’s perspective, what has been the biggest difference since moving to a more intelligent and resilient network environment?
Terry Walters said: “The biggest change has been the confidence and control we now have across the environment. Greater visibility across endpoints and the wider framework provides much better real-time insight into what is happening. There is less reactive firefighting and a faster incident response when required.”
3. How can organisations balance strong security controls with the need to provide a seamless user experience for staff and students?
James said: “Reducing friction while de-risking users is key. Identity-based controls such as MFA, conditional access and passkeys strengthen security without significantly affecting usability. Organisations should also understand, classify and protect their data so the right controls are applied to the right information. Combined with 24×7 monitoring and response capabilities, this enables strong security while maintaining a largely seamless user experience.”
Terry added: “The key is ensuring that security enables productivity rather than becoming a barrier to it. Too often organisations implement controls that are technically effective but create frustration for users, which encourages staff and students to find workarounds that introduce additional risk.
“A modern security approach should focus on protecting identities, devices and data in a way that is largely invisible to the end user. Technologies such as conditional access, risk-based authentication and single sign-on allow organisations to apply stronger security controls where the risk is highest, while maintaining a straightforward experience for legitimate users.
“This is particularly important because staff and students expect secure access from a variety of locations and devices. Security can no longer rely solely on the campus network; it must support learning and collaboration wherever users are working.”
4. For organisations still relying on legacy infrastructure or traditional perimeter-based security models, what should their first priority be?
James explained: “The first priority is understanding your assets and where they are located. From there, organisations should identify their most critical services and apply additional security controls around those areas, prioritising high-value assets rather than trying to tackle everything at once. It’s important to regularly review existing security controls, including firewall policies and access permissions, to ensure they continue to support the organisation’s intended security posture.
“Improving detection and logging capabilities is another essential step, helping organisations establish a baseline of normal activity and identify potential threats more quickly.
“Finally, vulnerability management is critical, particularly where legacy systems can’t easily be patched. Understanding which vulnerabilities present the greatest risk allows organisations to prioritise remediation where possible and implement compensating controls, such as virtual patching, where it isn’t.”
Terry said, “ Understand your current security posture before investing in new technology. Many organisations still operate on the assumption that anything inside the network can be trusted, but modern attacks increasingly originate through compromised accounts, cloud services, and remote access rather than traditional network breaches.
“We recently completed a comprehensive cybersecurity audit which has given us a clear view of where our risks lie. While we have begun implementing improvements, there remains a significant amount of work to be done before we can say we have materially reduced cyber risk across the organisation.
“Organisations should establish strong identity controls, including multi-factor authentication, privileged access management, and conditional access policies. These measures provide the greatest reduction in risk while creating the foundation for a wider Zero Trust security model.”
5. Looking ahead, how do you expect cyber threats to evolve over the next few years, particularly as AI-driven attacks become more sophisticated?
James said: “AI is already transforming both attack and defence. Frontier AI research demonstrates how rapidly exploitable vulnerabilities could be identified, significantly reducing the time organisations have to detect and remediate them.
“Organisations need to rethink how they manage cyber risk. There is no single solution, but reducing technical debt, improving exposure management and adopting technologies such as external attack surface management and virtual patching will become increasingly important.
“AI will also reshape cyber defence. Many of today’s separate security tools are likely to converge into more unified, AI-driven platforms capable of automating threat detection, response and even remediation, while still retaining human oversight.
“The challenge now is ensuring security strategies are agile enough to keep pace as AI accelerates the threat landscape.”
Terry said: “Cyber threats will become increasingly automated, targeted, and difficult for users to distinguish from legitimate communications. AI is already enabling threat actors to create highly convincing phishing emails, impersonate trusted individuals, and identify vulnerabilities at a much greater scale than was previously possible.
“Remote and hybrid working means that organisations can no longer rely on securing a physical office network. Identity, device security, and continuous monitoring become far more important when staff, students, and contractors are accessing systems from multiple locations.
“The challenge ahead is not simply adopting new ‘AI-driven’ security technologies but ensuring the fundamentals are in place first. Performing regular audits will highlight areas where progress has been made and where cyber resilience needs improving. By systematically addressing those findings, strengthening governance and improving user awareness, we are building a security culture that can adapt to an increasingly complex threat landscape.”
Logicalis UK&I, a provider of digital transformation and managed IT services, partnered with Highlands College to modernise its IT infrastructure and create a more secure, resilient, and future-ready learning environment.
By enhancing the college’s digital capabilities, Logicalis is helping support improved student experiences, skills development, and long-term educational success.
Visit uki.logicalis.com and highlands.ac.uk for more.
