Specialist insurance law firm launches cyber crime startup

Specialist insurance law firm Weightmans has today (25 September 2023) launched a new cyber crime startup consultancy for businesses.

Named CyXcel, the startup has been staffed by non-legal employees at major brokers like Marsh and Aon, as well as government communications headquarters (GCHQ), Pricewaterhouse Coopers, KPMG, supplier Accenture, the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) and the US Department of Defence.

The startup has been launched to provide legal expertise from an established insurance law firm to enable insurers to better handle cyber attacks and take preventative measures to avoid them.

Edward Lewis, CyXcel founder and partner at Weightmans LLP, said: “With the internet, computers and technology now dominating so much of what happens in our lives, cyber has become simultaneously one of the greatest opportunities and risks of modern times.

“For organisations of all shapes and sizes, transforming at pace to avoid digital disruption and obsolescence is a real need but also a major challenge. 

“That is the single purpose for which we’ve created CyXcel – to help our customers realise the possibility of their full digital potential while overcoming the many dangers they will inevitably encounter along the way.”

Agility and scale

The CyXcel team, expected to number 30 by the end of this year, has already worked on some of the biggest security incidents and data breaches to hit the public and private sectors in the last 12 months.

Lewis added: “Organisations need to be able to both resist and recover from potential cyber events quickly. Our collaborative, one-stop-shop approach has the agility of a startup and the scale of an established law firm, meaning we are the perfect partner for organisations of all sizes and sectors to do exactly that.”