Storm and Stress

By Lady Olga Maitland 30 March 2025

The US and cyber resilience

Last week, I moderated sessions at the Windsor Pulse conference on Corporate Risk, and chaired, moderated and spoke at the CSO 360 Americas conference in New York City on corporate risk, people and cyber resilience.  In my opening remarks, I warned:

'The corporate sector need to be on the alert and  follow international events, for geo-political tensions between countries sparks a sharp rise in domestic cyber attacks.

Cyber technology, developing all the time, has become a battlefield weapon hitting government agencies, critical infrastructure, health care, power grids, energy and water supplies,  financial services...no entity is immune from a hostile attack, with state and criminal agencies working together to degrade national systems.

Ironically, while there has been a rising warmth in relations between President Trump and President Putin, state sponsored attacks from Russia have and are rising sharply on the US.  This is due to the fact that in Russia there is a strong subculture at government level  which detests America and will do anything to weaken it.   Hence the attacks on Elon Musk's social media platform, X.

In short, cyber technology has become a state run battlefield weapon.'

Ukraine / Russia

It is only by being in the US that I could gauge a sense of awareness about the Ukraine Russia war.  I think it can be summed up by a Houston  financier, ‘As far as we are concerned, this is a war very far away from us here in Texas.  It does  not impinge on our lives.’   A view which might explain President Trump’s irritation about Ukraine, with deal-making with Putin of more consequence to him.

Israel

Contacts tell me that the protest against Hamas was fleeting, albeit meaningful.  However, a briefing from the Middle East Forum (below) sets out in detail how Hamas has lost its allies.  The final resolution, I am told, will rest with President Trump, who is the only person Mr Netanyahu fears.  

Meanwhile, the person to watch is former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, as the time will surely come for Mr Netanyahu to leave his post. An indication of Mr Bennett’s thinking came from a meeting he had at New York’s Columbia University yesterday (April 1)  when he said that any government he  leads would not include Arab parties.  He acknowledged that any such government must take care of Arab Israelis, ‘but because of the war that’s going on right now, and because of the composition of the Arab parties, it doesn’t make sense for them to join the government.’

Turkey

Regarding the Turkey demonstrations, here is a view from neighbouring Beirut:

‘Erdogan expected mass reaction to the arrest of the Mayor of Istanbul Ekram Imamoglu . But he expected he could absorb them and in any case, weather the storm.  But what he did not anticipate is the scale of protests.  So much so, that the jury is out as to the final outcome.’

In the event of a change of Presidency, watch out for the Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, as mentioned in Firas Modad’s paper below.   My own sources tell me that he is waiting in the wings and is regarded as the  natural heir-in-waiting.