Cyber Improvements is a UK-based cyber firm specialising in human-centred cyber resilience. Cyber Improvements have developed research-backed coaching, instruments and frameworks designed to assist organisations reply extra successfully to cyber incidents, whereas lowering cognitive overload, limiting human error and minimising longer-term impacts on workers wellbeing. Cyber Innovation’s early work, notably the event of CyGamBIT, was supported by CyberASAP, a analysis commercialisation programme that’s funded by the UK Authorities’s Division for Science, Innovation and Know-how and delivered by Innovate UK.
We spoke with Emily Rosenorn-Lanng (CEO) and Professor Vasilis Katos (CTO) of Cyber Improvements about how the corporate’s work is grounded in analysis, why human-centred resilience is changing into more and more important and the way their improvements are serving to organisations on an area and nationwide scale handle cyber incidents in a method that protects each safety outcomes and the folks delivering them.
Inform me about your organization
“We’re Cyber Improvements Ltd, a UK-based cybersecurity firm centered on strengthening organisational resilience on the human layer of cyber incidents. The corporate is led by Emily Rosenorn-Lanng, CEO and co-founder, alongside Vasilis Katos, CTO and Professor of Cybersecurity at Bournemouth College. Collectively, the founding group brings complementary experience spanning cybersecurity, psychology and utilized studying design.”
“Cyber Improvements was fashioned in response to a recurring hole noticed throughout sectors: cyber incidents hardly ever fail as a result of know-how is absent, however as a result of individuals are overwhelmed, misled or required to make choices underneath stress. Our work focuses on constructing sensible functionality at these human determination factors, the place incidents typically escalate or stall. Our flagship programme, Cyber First Help (CFA), helps clearer judgement, coordination, and restoration throughout incidents, alongside game-based studying instruments reminiscent of CyGamBIT that assist construct safer behaviours earlier and at scale.”
“Our work is underpinned by established sociotechnical fashions and ongoing tutorial analysis, delivered in collaboration with Bournemouth College. We work with public sector organisations, SMEs and significant infrastructure companions to translate tutorial perception into utilized, scalable cyber resilience.”
What downside does your know-how remedy, and why does it matter proper now?
“Fashionable cyber assaults more and more succeed not as a result of organisations lack controls, however as a result of individuals are required to make high-stakes choices underneath sustained cognitive and emotional stress. Phishing, ransomware and enterprise e-mail compromise exploit belief, urgency and overload at exactly the moments when groups are least in a position to decelerate and assume clearly.”
“This problem has intensified with the rise of AI-enabled social engineering, which has elevated each the quantity and psychological sophistication of assaults. On the similar time, the stress on safety groups is changing into more and more troublesome to maintain. Extensively cited surveys recommend {that a} vital proportion of cybersecurity professionals are contemplating leaving the career resulting from stress and burnout, at a time when demand for expert defenders stays excessive.”
“Whereas technical controls stay important, they don’t tackle the place many incidents escalate or fail. Our know-how focuses on that hole by serving to organisations recognise early human indicators of compromise, stabilise decision-making throughout incidents, and cut back each operational disruption and the human price of responding to cyber assaults.”
How did CyberASAP (Cyber Safety Educational Startup Accelerator Programme) assist you to flip tutorial analysis right into a business product or firm?
CyberASAP, which is funded by the UK Authorities’s Division for Science, Innovation and Know-how (DSIT) and delivered by Innovate UK, helps UK-based tutorial groups flip analysis into commercially viable cyber safety services and products by offering mentoring, coaching, market validation help, and pathways to commercialisation. Via the programme, the group was in a position to develop CyGamBIT, a cutting-edge game-based studying platform designed to immerse customers in real-world cybersecurity eventualities.
“CyberASAP performed a important function by difficult our assumptions and requiring early engagement with actual customers and supply contexts. The programme offered a structured surroundings by which tutorial framing was examined towards operational actuality, revealing the place adaptation was obligatory.”
“One of the crucial necessary outcomes was studying when to pivot. Via CyberASAP, we refined our focus from a narrower instructional idea to a broader, incident-response-centred mannequin that organisations actively wanted. The programme supported disciplined iteration slightly than untimely scale, enabling us to translate analysis right into a viable, evidence-led product with out dropping integrity.”
What’s the largest milestone you’ve achieved since finishing the programme?
“Probably the most vital milestone has been shifting from pilot-stage validation to dwell supply with organisations going through actual cyber danger. Delivering Cyber First Help in operational settings allowed us to look at how folks truly reply underneath stress and to refine the strategy primarily based on behaviour slightly than intention.”
“This transition confirmed demand and relevance, whereas producing perception that continues to form our instruments and coaching. It marked a transparent shift from idea to follow, establishing Cyber Improvements as an operational firm slightly than a analysis challenge.”
What progress have you ever made in securing funding or business backing thus far?
“Our early progress has centered on constructing a reputable, evidence-led basis earlier than pursuing large-scale funding. We’ve secured government-backed funding, delivered paid pilots, and developed business partnerships that help validation and supply in actual organisational contexts.”
“Alongside this, we’re in energetic conversations with companions and funders who perceive the long-term nature of human-centred cyber resilience. Fairly than prioritising speedy scale, we’re centered on sustainable progress, alignment and sustaining the standard of supply that organisations depend on throughout incidents.”
What recommendation would you give to teachers trying to apply to the programme or enrolled already?
“Be open to the concept a pivot just isn’t a failure of analysis, however typically the purpose at which it turns into extra progressive and extra helpful. Commercialisation generally is a continuation of the analysis journey, not a departure from it, whether it is approached with mental honesty and a willingness to be taught.”
“Our expertise has proven the worth of interdisciplinary collaboration and early engagement with practitioners. Listening rigorously to how concepts carry out in actual contexts typically reveals new analysis questions and sharper instructions. When dealt with nicely, the journey to commercialisation can strengthen analysis slightly than dilute it.”
On the twenty fifth February 2026 in London, alongside numerous profitable alumni, like CybPass and FACT360, Cyber Improvements will likely be collaborating in CyberASAP’s Demo Day as a part of the alumni showcase. CyberASAP Demo Day additionally options the 14 ultimate groups on this 12 months’s cohort who will likely be pitching and demonstrating their proofs of idea. Discover out extra and register to attend right here.
