Hello, it's Anthony Chadwick at the Webinar Vets, welcoming you to another episode of Vet Chat. I'm really, really pleased today to have, a, a good friend of mine, er, an old friend, worked with us for a long time now at the webinar vets. It's Rob Noble who is the chairman of the webinar vets.

So Rob, this is our first ever time of talking as a podcast, but it it's great to get you on and obviously wanted to talk. Little bit about your career but also around AI and cybersecurity cos I know it's an area that you've very much been involved in as well, over your long career working for people like IBM and Lotus and of course, claim to fame, which I always tell people about is helping to develop the iPlayer. Yes indeed, oh, well, thank you Anthony, and as you say, we've had many chats over the years working together as friends and colleagues, but first time together on the the podcast.

So hello to you and hello to all the listeners. Ah well, listen, thank you so much for coming on and I think it's been, For me also so good to have somebody like you in the business who isn't a vet, but nevertheless brings so much business skill in because I think as vets we can be a bit conservative, we can think that we've got all the answers. So one of the benefits I suppose of corporatization is that people have come in from the outside, although we're not corporate, but they've come from the outside to, to bring those skills.

And yet, you know, nevertheless it's important. For businesses to remain, I think veterinary led and and to have very good veterinary input into them, otherwise they can become, A retailer instead of a a a proper er professional practise. Oh, you're, you're very kind there, Anthony, but yeah, I fully agree with the, the last statement there, which is, yeah, the, and especially at the webinar vet, we want to keep it vet led, for vets, vet nurses, people in the veterinary world, but obviously, it's important because we have a payroll to meet and, we have to pay rent, to run it as a business.

And so the blend of the two, is, is a great deal of fun, and I must admit I enjoy working with you and the team. So it's, it's, it's good fun there. And it's been, it's been great having your tech knowledge, having worked for people like IBM and Lotus Works.

Maybe just tell us a little bit about er the back history before we maybe move more into detail, talking about this incredibly important subject, cybersecurity and then also. The use of AI in business generally? Yeah, sure, I mean, I'm, I've got a few years on you, so I've got quite a long CV, so I won't bore the listeners with the whole thing, but it is a little bit like a three act opera, but hopefully nobody dies.

In the first, the 1st 3rd of my career was in the corporate world, going around the world working for very large American technology companies, primarily as an engineer, but then working my way up through the management chain. Until I was on the board, as you say, of, Lotus IBM, the European board, where I ran all their software and services divisions. And then the, the, the second act beckoned in the late 80s, early 90s when I went entrepreneurial and, well, I needed to get out of the corporate world if the, if the truth be known, although I still have a great respect, particularly for IBM.

And I did little startups and turnarounds all based around the internet because it was a new thing then. Hard to believe now, but it really was. We used to actually have to go and explain to people how the internet worked and what it meant commercially, and I met employee number one of Google Europe.

In those times, but it was, it was a great period and I, I built up, formed, and turned around a number of digital companies and very luckily, was part of that explosion of, technology and the internet and digital commerce. And you're right. Yes, one of the, one of the companies that I was an exec of for some years actually, we built iPlayer for the BBC when their original project had gone a little bit awry, but there was a guy there who had a tremendous vision for what he wanted iPlayer to be, and we won the contract and we built and ran it for some years, and then they took it in-house as was sensible.

And the last act of my career has been the one you're more familiar with, which is a, a digital non-exec, plural on a number of boards, exciting companies including AI companies, medical companies, veterinary ones, and so forth, but always with a technology primary underlying business model. That, that's where my strengths lie and I kind of get how to, Get technology to meet your business aims, don't always get it right, and the internet sometimes has surprises, but it's, it's, I've been a very fortunate man. It's been a very exciting and, and rewarding career.

And of course you do some great work I know with almshouses and some charitable work and mentoring as well for younger professionals which is also massively important, it's that sort of paying forward giving back isn't it er that, that we all need to do to just make the world turn that. Bit more sweetly. Yeah, I couldn't, yeah, absolutely, and it's kind of you to mention that, yeah, yes, as I've started to titrate down my plural work, I, I, I, at one time I had a peak of 9 board positions, which was a little bit too stretching because I don't believe you can always give your full attention.

To all the business matters when you're really hopping between subjects, but as I've titrated that down gently over the last 2 or 3 years, yeah, I've been picking up lots of charitable work and and I greatly enjoy the mentoring of young people and funnily enough after this. Podcast. I'm off to meet someone, to, to do just that.

And, yeah, hopefully, it helps the next generation with a little bit of grey hair. I'm not always right, but I can usually offer some suggestions and some help to get them on their way. And sometimes it's just letting people talk themselves through it because they actually have the suggestions and the ideas and the solutions themselves don't they?

Exactly so, yeah, absolutely, yeah, more often than not, we know the answer, we just need either some confirmation of it or to step through a logical process to, to come to the right conclusion. But hey, we're here today to talk about cybersecurity which is bit of a scary subject for, for some. And I don't want to be a, a doomster, but it, it, it, it should be something taken seriously by everyone who has any kind of online life or presence.

And, and you know before the pandemic I was telling veterinary businesses you should be digital businesses and to a large extent, maybe listened to a little bit but not a great deal, so there was no, there wasn't a huge, Urgency from people, you know, veterinary practises to digitally transform but of course when the pandemic came suddenly, we were talking about telemedicine, we were talking about automated appointments and so on, making sure you had a Facebook page so you could tell people when you were open and when you weren't, because people couldn't just go out and have a nose you know that everybody was restricted a bit, and I think that's kind of, Meant that now pretty much every business has digital elements to it, it stores people's data etc. That's why it's so important you know we've we've been a cyber essentials business for a number of years which is a government er programme. But clearly you know there are times when er hacking happens and er people's data is lost, but also you know the the hackers are becoming more clever now aren't they, so perhaps could you give us.

Three tips of stuff that is probably obvious to you, but I bet a lot of veterinary practises aren't doing. Oh yeah, yeah, with, with pleasure, I think the, the really big one, and there, there are lots of different versions of this, but it, it centres around so. Engineering and something called phishing spelled P H, and then there are various versions of that smishing, fishing, and all sorts and spear for fishing, but essentially they rely on actually us letting them in.

And especially, you know, if you're a busy vet or veterinary nurse, you might be rushing into the surgery or rushing between appointments and work. And an email comes in saying urgent, you need to do something, change your password or a delivery isn't coming, or you know, some offer. My first tip would be if you get anything, I know this is very counterintuitive, but if you get anything through a digital communication channel that says it's urgent and you've got to act now, take a breath.

Hm. Because it, it may well be from your bank or it may well be from DPD, but the chances are it isn't. And we get, we are all getting better at spotting these, but with the advent of AI, they, they are getting ever more convincing.

And so all I would, all I would say is take a breath, look at it again, and if you are so busy with your day job that you can't really have a good study of that message, just put it down, you know, and, and, and wait till after. Surgery or after your visit and then relook at it because what you may spot then is that the, the address it comes from is slightly misspelt or there's a typo in it where there shouldn't be if it comes from a professional organisation and the clues will then go, ah, yeah, so that, that would be my, my first tip. My second one would be, be really.

Cautious around passwords and password management and maybe we can chat a bit more about that in a minute, but the passwords that were perfectly acceptable 5 or 10 years ago just aren't anymore. And in fact, I'd probably go further and say passwords alone are really not enough. It's a little bit like leaving your front door key in your front door when you go to bed at night.

And we're seeing that more and more now even with, you know, I was on Booking.com before and it wanted, you know, it sent me a code to my email that I then had to put in. It it wasn't just a a a password because again with the advent of AI codes can be broken.

Very quickly, can't they? They can, and, and that two-factor authentication as they call it, or 2FA, and the, the technology industry, by the way, has as many acronyms as the veterinary one. Yeah, we just don't understand them unless we're told, do we?

No, absolutely, but 2FA is useful, having a second device to authorise. Or agree to the integrity of it, but there's a kind of grading within them, and the email code is probably the least secure because email isn't that secure. So happy to talk about that a bit more if you like.

And my last tip would be, be really careful about public Wi Fi. If you're in a cafe or an airport waiting lounge or you know, travelling, as many of us do, if you log on to those free Wi Fi's, you really should not be doing banking or anything which involves confidential information either for work or home. You, you should then use either a, a way of encoding things, and masking it, i.e.

A VPN and, and don't use the free ones, pay for it. You get what you pay for, I'm afraid that's an old, wisdom, but it's still true. And if at all possible, don't use them.

I mean, your, your cellular network is actually surprisingly secure, certainly if you're in the UK or Europe. And so that's more secure than using an airport or petrol station or cafe Wi Fi going on your personal hotspot. Yeah, go on your personal hotspot and get a data agreement with your provider that gives you enough bandwidth that you can do it, and that's much better.

And with 5G pretty well everywhere now, speeds are great, you know, you don't need that Wi Fi. Because some of them have been compromised, you'll never know which, and once they've got a little bit of information about you, that's when we go back to tip number one, which is, you know, it's the phishing thing, so they then know that you're travelling around and that you use an iPhone or an Android, and then they send you some messages and, and they're, they're banking on you. Not looking at them in great detail or being distracted and responding to it.

Or as happened recently, and this is a true example where a parent, of, some children who are at school with my kids, they were on holiday and they knew their kids were travelling. So when they got one of those classic messages that say, Mom, dad, I've lost my phone. Phone, can you forward me, you know, 150 quid so I can buy a cheap phone.

It, it all stacked up. It looked legitimate and it, and the timing was perfect. Now the people doing the fishing didn't know about that timing.

They were just sending that to a, a, a huge number, but they caught them. And before they knew it, they bought some vouchers and sent them. And it, you know, they're wise after the event now, but it would have been even better.

And they're not silly people, and I think this is the thing I, I like to really share with everybody, is that if you, either if you get one of these, which almost certainly you will, or if you do service it and you get caught, don't think of yourself as a silly person. You're just one of many, but do spread the word, learn the lesson and say, oh, by the way, to your friends, colleagues. In your social circle and work, explain what happened because, by being brave about that, they will benefit and, and the honest truth is an awful lot of very smart people get caught by something at some time because the, these crooks are chancers and they, they roll the dice and they catch you.

And, and then you actually put me onto the little red doris on the end of my charge point because actually if you go in and you're trying to charge an iPhone, not through a plug but through the, the USB ports, that can also be a problem, can't it? Yes, it can, and this is one particularly for international travellers, you know, your, your phone or tablet's running low on on battery and you're about to hop on a flight, but right there is a little socket that'll charge it or it's in your hotel room, and the Americans have a phrase for this. They call it power jacking because the cable that you plug into the USB charging port also carries data.

So it has a short circuit right into the heart of your phone or tablet, and if that socket has been compromised, they can get an awful lot of useful data very quickly. So the way to stop that, and on some software, it actually says before it fires up the data, it says, are you wanting to do this, but on others it doesn't. It depends whether you're, you know, various versions of the software.

Yeah, a little, a little red blocker. It's a little socket and it plugs on the end of your USB charging lead and then you plug that into your phone and it, it carries the power, but it blocks the data lines. Very cheap, about 5 pounds, $5 on Amazon or many other online stores are available, you know, I get no commission for that, but I've, I've spread the word on that one a lot because it's very common, particularly in some airports in some parts of the world.

And what's it actually called? It's called a data blocker, I can find it if you like, and if you put that into Amazon, you'll find it. I shall hold up the little, there it is, it's just this one's the USBC version, and so all you do is you plug it on your cable.

And then you plug that into your phone and that into the socket. And you're fine, you can get your charge, and in fact buses and trains even have these sockets now, and you just don't know because this is public transport or publicly available power. You don't know who's been fiddling with it.

Yeah. No, it's, it, they're really good points. I'm, I'm.

The common things are common, so if you do those few things you're you're already gonna be much more protected but again suggesting for, particularly if you're a vet in practise you're running your own practise and you've got all that data, You know, going for something like cyber essentials, having a a a company that looks after your support of your PCs and everything is looking to make sure you're as secure as you can be is really important because obviously if somebody steals all your data. It's a bit of a disaster from a reputational perspective for your business, isn't it? Oh, absolutely, and, and, you know, all, all the veterinary practises will have a database of clients with phone numbers, emails, and maybe even financial details, you know, for somebody who's criminally biassed, that's fantastic, you know, you, you don't have to get into too many of those a week.

And by the way, what they do is they don't just usually try their own attack on that, they'll sell it on the dark web, so they get 22 bites of that particular cherry, and it, and it's, it's expensive. So yes, cyber essentials is a good first step, and, and if you're worried, pay a little bit of money and get a cybersecurity specialist or if you've got a provider, ask them. To look at your systems and make sure that you have the firewall to your main database turned on, that it's kept up to date, that the systems are always up to date.

That, that's the other one though, that's so simple and I know, I know the message is out there, but I'm not sure everybody does it. But updating the software on your computer regularly is a really good thing to do, not, not just because the manufacturer gives you a few new widgets and facilities, but mainly for the security patches which are happening day in and day out, and I know those updates are annoying, particularly if you know you're trying to shut down the computer at the end of the day to take your laptop perhaps home, and then it says doing an update, please do not power off and wait, you know, but. You know, do it, please, because it, it is protecting you and those, those vulnerabilities are being found ever faster by AI.

So there are new vulnerabilities in old software and, and I don't know whether you remember Antony, but in, in 2017, nearly the whole of the Ukraine got ground to a halt by a very nasty ransomware attack called WannaCry. But the thing about these sort of attacks is they're not as, although it was primarily directed against them, it went everywhere. And in the case of the UK, one of the organisations it hit was the NHS and they hadn't updated a lot of the computers from, would you believe Windows XP and it crashed and took down a number of hospitals and some critical services, extraordinary, and it was as basic as they hadn't done the updates.

Yeah. You know, it's a, it's a sobering lesson and it could happen, you know, in your veterinary practise too, so you know, keep those computers updated. I know it's a pain, encourage your staff to do it too, but it's, it's important.

Hm, just moving on to the final bit, talking about AI you know we're seeing it coming across all levels of the veterinary industry, yeah, some of the fantastic scribes we're seeing now which are gonna help us to, Record what's happening in the consulting room so that can then go on to the PMS gives us the ability to send better communications out to our clients, saves us time so we get home earlier, where do you see the particular large language models, how can they help, not so much personally but in a professional and a business sense. Oh, I'm, I'm, I know you and I share a view. On this, it's a very exciting time, and AI has a tremendous potential in the veterinary world.

It has some downsides too, but you know, the upside is considerable. You're right, the automatic prescribing systems are very helpful, and they're getting better and better every day. But also AI in pharmaceuticals in finding new drugs and treatments, and of course that's common across the, the veterinary and the medical world.

That's a great development, but also AI in terms of reminders and, and looking at various symptoms, so you, you may have a client who Brings in a patient and for over a number of months with different symptoms. Now, you know, a, a, a highly experienced vet will probably spot this, but AI will spot 5 or 10% more, and, and that's where it's useful. It's that, it's that edge case, and I think AI as an agile.

As a tool to the professional vet or veterinary nurse, fantastic. So there's some really exciting stuff happening there and also simple things like scheduling, billing, analysing the finances of the practise to give you better reporting. There are a number of software packages that run those account systems.

We're all familiar with them. Most of them are now bolting AI into that to make, whether it's invoicing or the end of month tossing up and, getting the accounts out, much quicker, much easier, and, all, all very good, very useful. The only thing I would urge all of us to do both professionally and privately, is if you're using the large language modules, and I mean AI has been a 70 year journey.

Early intelligence and behaviours of intelligence were apparent in the 1950s, but it's only since sort of about 2020 21 when chat GPT really exploded. Across the world that this new generative AI came about, and the thing about generative AI is it's extremely subtle in the way it uses language, large language model, it almost in the name. So whatever it presents to you is very compelling.

However, it does have the capacity to make mistakes. So if you're using something like Cloud or chat GPT or Gemini to assist perhaps analysing a document or to arrange something, always sense check it with your human brain and think of it as a very bright intern or assistant, not as the PhD professor. Even though it presents itself in its language as the PhD professor, you know, always sense check the output.

Yeah, I think it's, it's well recognised, isn't it, and particularly in medical areas, that whole area of confabulation that the mistakes that it can make, which, you know, if we give a dog 10 times the drug dose that was, you know, that we should give, then obviously that's a really serious problem whereas. You know there are some areas where those confabulations are, are less important, I think also you know with some of the companies we're working with that can monitor and analyse X-rays and you know we're seeing it with cervical smears in the, in the human field where they can go through so many and they pick up something that doesn't quite look right, a human can check it, obviously not nearly at the speed that they can go through the er, The tests as well and obviously we we can learn from, where the medics are going with this so, very interesting, obviously with pros and cons, but it's about, I, I, I remember reading a quote I think it was yesterday that if you're not using it, the companies that are using it will probably be able to overpower you and and do better and be more efficient than you are, so it's not as much, you know that er AI will take your job away but. Somebody using AI in another practise where they're just so much more efficient, perhaps can, can do the job a little bit more cheaply because of that, that will have a competitive advantage won't they?

I, I think you've nailed it, yeah, I, I think, personally, and this is a personal view, the, the idea that AI is gonna sweep away professional jobs is not necessarily, The future, but the people using AI will definitely be getting the better jobs and be more successful without doubt. But there will be a bit of a shakeup in, in the world of professionals this time, much like, you know, the past industrial revolutions impact of the working man or woman. This one will, I think this will impact, but with a With a profession like veterinary, I think, I think the, the adjunct of AI is, is the real key to success rather than AI replacing, the vet.

The augmentation of the person and yeah, there is an interesting area around triage. I've got a an old friend and colleague of mine who is doing it in human health at the moment and they're having quite some considerable success, but, and it is a but, the predilection towards making the odd error. People call it a hallucination.

I personally, I don't like that word because it implies sentience, and these systems are not sentient at the moment. They are mimicking human sentience, but they're not actually sentient. So I don't think it's hallucinating.

I think it's an error. It's a good old fashioned error, statistical error actually. Yeah, which humans can make probably computers less likely to, but.

Yeah, we need to be aware of this. We, we do, and so, yeah, human oversight's the key, but it's very exciting at the moment, and, and I think AI, you're right about, analysing imaging in particular, that's where, and it doesn't sleep, so you can be throwing images at it 24 hours a day, and it can be analysing them and coming back with diagnosis and, and useful data. Fantastic.

And of course just to finish, obviously for people listening, we've now got all of our webinars, our nearly 3000 webinars in 22 different languages which to do with a human translator would have cost millions and millions of pounds and the mission for the webinar that was very much to make veterinary education more accessible, more affordable to vets and nurses across the world, but with the caveat before, only if you speak pretty good English or understand English pretty well. And, and we sometimes arrogantly think everybody does speak English or understands it very well, which of course is, is not true. And then we are also, and those of you listening, please do go and have a look at the, the platform, for Ava, our first AI humanoid, who will help you with search and other things, so do let us know how that's going, we know it's not perfect yet, but .

We, we want to be as helpful as we can when you're on the platform trying to find a particular subject or a webinar or a podcast. Yeah, absolutely, and, and Ava, I know it's, it, it's in its, first iteration, the second version's coming out soon, but it's getting ever more helpful, particularly if you're a busy vet and you just want to look through our extraordinarily large library of, Back webinars and you want to find a particular subject, you know, and then you can just deep dive straight into the, the thing you're looking for rather than wade through menus or directories or, you know, the, the options you didn't want, so it's, it's very useful, absolutely. Rob, thank you very much, we could probably spend hours and, and, we will do that at some point with a glass of wine in hand, maybe a tiny bit later, these are areas that we talk a lot about because we're obviously a digital and an AI company, but we also feel it's so important to pass that information on to companies who aren't using it in the same way that we are, but if you get that right and cyber essentials and cybersecurity, it's, You know it's, it's so important to be looking at these and taking them seriously, isn't it?

Yeah, absolutely and and yeah I I look forward to enjoying a glass of something with you in the near future too and all I'd say is the other thing is to veterinary professionals. Obviously your primary focus is on, you know, the animal welfare, and your clients. So if you don't have to become a computer expert here, if you are using a service company, ask them, you know what, what, what are you doing about cybersecurity and make sure they are a cyber essentials assured provider so you know you don't, you don't have to learn a whole new subject.

You're busy enough in your own space, you know, don't. Don't feel you need to be perfect on it, but make sure you hold everybody who provides anything to you digitally to, to a standard. Rob, thank you so much, I know how busy you are, I really appreciate your time, always, but you know, particularly coming on and doing the podcast and hope to see you soon and thank you everyone for listening and hope to see you also on a podcast or a webinar very soon.

Have a great rest of the day wherever you are.