Charlie McMurdie

Charlie McMurdie served as Scotland Yard’s Head of Economic and Cyber Crime, and led the Police Central ecrime Unit and the National ecrime Programmes. She was the country’s top law enforcement officer in the fast moving, complex, international world of hacking, cyber-crime and online fraud before becoming the Senior Cyber Crime Advisor at PwC.

After a career which took in anti-terrorism, covert policing, and work on murder, specialist vehicle theft and fraud divisions, Charlie spearheaded the Metropolitan Police’s attempts to prevent and detect cyber-crime. She fought battles with complacent and sceptical colleagues, officials and government and established one of the leading agencies in its field in the world.

Charlie addresses the urgent, vital need for appropriate cybersecurity measures, both physical, human and digital, in the form of back-ups, off-site servers, policy, training, software and hardware. She examines the strategic nature of the precautions required now and in the future, and gives examples of what has happened in the past. Covering hackers attacking governments, banks and retailers, organised criminals gaining customer payment details via fake websites, teenagers stealing unreleased music, Charlie highlights that every organisation is vulnerable because every organisation has something people can use for illegal means. She reveals the reality (and the myths) of the threat as well as the financial, legal and reputational implications.

As well as cyber-crime, Charlie’s extensive experience in policing working in counter terrorism and more conventional areas give her an understanding of strategic and technical operations, risk and deployment. As well as running her own security consultancy she is also an Honorary Fellow at the University of Warwick’s cybersecurity centre.