RazorSecure are pleased to announce Emma Taylor as our new Head of Digital Safety
An award-winning engineer with more than 30 years of experience across transport, aerospace and energy, and a Past Chair of a Professional Engineering Institution, the Safety and Reliability Society, Emma brings a unique and expert perspective to the challenges faced by our customers. By recognising the challenges posed to safety, she is working with the rest of the RazorSecure team to implement cyber security solutions to mitigate the risks across both domains.
How do you see safety and security linking together today?
As an experienced safety engineer, it is clear that the overlap between safety and security is becoming ever deeper and more complex. For me the headline is simply that “if it’s not confirmed as secure it’s potentially not safe”. The uncertainty around today and tomorrow’s cyber threat combined with the increasing digitalisation of the rail network adds further challenges. It can be hard to gain clarity and certainty about what to do next.
How can a safety perspective inform cyber security?
Safety specialists often have to get involved once incidents have happened. My personal and professional motivation is to engage, act and prevent. Having worked at the UK’s internationally-recognised RSSB (Rail Safety and Standards Board), I’ve seen first hand the importance of live monitoring and data analysis in supporting the ongoing safe operation of the railway. Not only does installing a monitoring capability ensure organisations in the supply chain are able to support operators to meet their legal obligations (for example meeting the EU’s Common Safety Method for Monitoring), it helps them spot incoming potential problems.
There is an established safety culture in rail of using trends in past incidents to spot increases in risks. With RazorSecure’s technology the door is now opening for a similar approach in cyber security.
What brought you to RazorSecure?
I chose to come to RazorSecure because of their positive team working culture and their drive to improve the safety, reliability and integrity of rail operations. Growing from an alumni of a GCHQ accelerator programme, to protecting over 50million rail passenger journeys, tells you a lot about the ambition, culture and purpose here at RazorSecure.
From my early discussions with the team at RazorSecure I could tell that their approach would be a large step forward for the rail industry. Coming from a safety background with a system-wide view, I saw and appreciated that the RazorSecure team were focused on not just creating another cyber security product that fits across multiple industries, but directly applying their solutions to the unique challenges and risks tailored for the rail industry.
What would you like to achieve with RazorSecure?
In my new role I will continue to engage directly with all stakeholders, reflecting RazorSecure’s global reach and unique technology. We will bring to the table and help develop safety and cyber security assessment tools, standards, frameworks and methods. This will help frame implementation of our software and security gateway solutions, whilst continuing to be part of the community of thought leaders in both safety and cyber security.
I will also look for opportunities to support those in the railway with increased understanding and engagement with cyber security monitoring solutions. The railway will go on changing but if we focus on monitoring, reporting and analysis, together we can meet and treat the challenges posed by the emerging risk landscape.
If you are interested in gaining further insight and understanding about the role of cyber security within railway digital safety; look out for our upcoming digital safety series with expert input from Emma.
