Tech Chat – February 2025
Pursued by calamities
A lifetime ago I had a gap year (or gap yaaaaaah) around South America, overlanding in a Bedford 6-tonner, but carrying disaster wherever I went. We passed a volcano in Chile and the next day it erupted; drove the length of Argentina, and its currency and economy collapsed; explored the highlands of Bolivia, and the peasants rose and revolted; got tear-gassed when I stumbled into the middle of a student vs military stand-off which closed down Quito for several days; and chose to stay in a lucky valley when the 6.8 Richter scale Paez River earthquake hit Columbia, and mudslides swamped a neighbouring town and killed 1,100 people, but skirted round the village I was staying in.
After the earthquake I retreated to Ecuador, and opted to go the coast for a while – but, typically for me, as you are now beginning to understand, the road had been washed away in recent storms. Stumped by how to get there, I was offered a lift in the back of an open backed truck, amongst the local farmers off to sell the watermelons piled around us. They didn’t understand my bad Iberian Castilian accent, but I could get the gist of their South American Spanish chatter – and had to sit calmly and apparently unknowing, as they discussed whether they should kidnap and ransom me, and how much they could make. My sartorial elegance can’t have impressed them, as they decided my family clearly wasn’t wealthy enough for them to bother, and so on we drove. I got to bid them a friendly goodbye, glad of my ragged beard and well-worn Millets shorts, clutching their gift of a watermelon.
Ransoms these days are about ransomware, not what you wear, and are highly lucrative to the successful perpetrator. A 2024 ransomware attack on CDK, a car dealership management software platform, closed the platform down from 18th June 2024 to 4th July 2024, costing the dealership users more than $1bn collectively. Notably Pinewood Technologies, the AIM listed competitor which came out of Pendragon, was able to demonstrate it retains its integrity, and emphasising its benefits as an even more compelling alternative. It certainly must have helped in winning a five-year contract with Global Auto Holdings, announced today – Pinewood’s new client is one of the largest in the world, with 155 franchise dealerships across the UK, North America and Scandinavia. Cyber defences are vital. Although not confirmed, CDK is likely to have paid a ransom, which CNN suggests was 387 bitcoin (c$25m at the time). The perpetrators are supposedly a known Russian/Eastern European group called Blacksuit. Bear in mind that in the UK the law confuses the situation further with Proceeds of Crime legislation, potentially making directors liable if they pay money to what is undoubtedly a criminal organisation.
Cybersecurity is an obvious must-have, in every organisation and protecting every device. We initiated in January on Smarttech247 (note here, tech demo here), a small and growing cyber security company with surprisingly large customers, which we find to be the best proof of product and service quality – the average spend per customer is €400k per annum. Smarttech’s assistance to AutoNation, a car dealership affected by the CDK ransom, will have mitigated $millions in potential further losses. The group is in investment mode, scaling the channel partner pool, its global reach, and its technology. Cash generation should evolve and blossom with achievable forecasts for revenue growth.
While South America continues to delight in the news that I haven’t been back for thirty years and thus future disasters are averted, cyber breaches remain a huge and growing risk. AI can now assist smaller bad actors in designing attacks tailored to your corporate software stack and choices of application, and even more effectively mimic applications and people you trust. Commercial and regulatory drivers to prevent cybersecurity breaches are only ever increasing. With remarkably few pure cybersecurity businesses on AIM, Smarttech247 is worth becoming familiar with.
Happy Valentine’s Day and Happy 20th Birthday to YouTube!