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 decreasing cognitive overload, limiting human error and minimising longer-term impacts on employees wellbeing. Cyber Innovation’s early work, significantly 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 essential and the way their improvements are serving to organisations on an area and nationwide scale handle cyber incidents in a approach 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 targeted 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 staff 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 not often fail as a result of expertise is absent, however as a result of individuals are overwhelmed, misled or required to make choices beneath strain. Our work focuses on constructing sensible functionality at these human determination factors, the place incidents usually escalate or stall. Our flagship programme, Cyber First Help (CFA), helps clearer judgement, coordination, and restoration throughout incidents, alongside game-based studying instruments equivalent to 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 drawback does your expertise resolve, 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 beneath sustained cognitive and emotional strain. 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 strain on safety groups is changing into more and more troublesome to maintain. Extensively cited surveys counsel {that a} important proportion of cybersecurity professionals are contemplating leaving the occupation attributable to stress and burnout, at a time when demand for expert defenders stays excessive.”
“Whereas technical controls stay important, they don’t deal with the place many incidents escalate or fail. Our expertise 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 value of responding to cyber assaults.”
How did CyberASAP (Cyber Safety Educational Startup Accelerator Programme) enable you 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 by offering mentoring, coaching, market validation assist, and pathways to commercialisation. Via the programme, the staff 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 essential function by difficult our assumptions and requiring early engagement with actual customers and supply contexts. The programme supplied a structured setting during which tutorial framing was examined towards operational actuality, revealing the place adaptation was vital.”
“Some of the essential 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 fairly 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?
“Essentially the most important milestone has been transferring from pilot-stage validation to stay supply with organisations dealing with actual cyber danger. Delivering Cyber First Help in operational settings allowed us to look at how folks really reply beneath strain and to refine the method based mostly on behaviour fairly 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 observe, establishing Cyber Improvements as an operational firm fairly than a analysis undertaking.”
What progress have you ever made in securing funding or business backing up to now?
“Our early progress has targeted on constructing a reputable, evidence-led basis earlier than pursuing large-scale funding. We’ve got secured government-backed funding, delivered paid pilots, and developed business partnerships that assist validation and supply in actual organisational contexts.”
“Alongside this, we’re in lively conversations with companions and funders who perceive the long-term nature of human-centred cyber resilience. Relatively than prioritising fast scale, we’re targeted 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 that a pivot shouldn’t be a failure of analysis, however usually the purpose at which it turns into extra progressive and extra helpful. Commercialisation is usually a continuation of the analysis journey, not a departure from it, whether it is approached with mental honesty and a willingness to study.”
“Our expertise has proven the worth of interdisciplinary collaboration and early engagement with practitioners. Listening rigorously to how concepts carry out in actual contexts usually reveals new analysis questions and sharper instructions. When dealt with properly, the journey to commercialisation can strengthen analysis fairly than dilute it.”
On the twenty fifth February 2026 in London, alongside varied 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 last 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.
