Surviving Cyber: The Jumpstart Course 

“Surviving Cyber: The Jumpstart Course”,  is a self-study online education course that gives the owners and managers of small knowledge-based businesses the jumpstart they need to create their first Cyber Resilience Plan.   It concentrates on the essential steps that are achievable in a relatively short period of time.   This may be their first Cyber Resilience Plan, but it will not be their last.

This course comes from the lessons learned both in my years as a financial risk assessment expert and from my journey of discovery during the last 3 years. I hope that my personal experiences and professional background make me a suitable choice to guide small business owners in this hazardous environment.

Suitable for the owners of small knowledge-based businesses of many types, including:
  • Accountants
  • Lawyers/Solicitors
  • Architects
  • Engineers
  • Surveyors
  • Insurance Brokers
  • Other Financial Advisors
  • Digital Marketing companies
  • SaaS providers
  • IT Services providers
  • Digital first businesses
  • ...and many more

Details of the Course

Each session deals with one topic and each topic builds on the previous one. Each Section includes teaching, presented through a series of pre-recorded videos, a Poll to gather your views, a Q&A feature, slide deck handouts, supporting PDF handouts and Action Points to be taken.

All the content for each Section is held on Ruzuku, the Learning Management System. The course video material adds to approximately 3.75 hours of video content. All content is available on joining the course and the Sections can be completed on demand at your own pace. 

Student support is available by email. 

Benefits of the Course

This course delivers a transformation in the way that business owners and managers think about cyber risk. You will:

  • Learn how to achieve a positive Mindset shift in thinking about cyber risk from negative to positive. 
  • Learn how three components (Mindset, Strategy and Tactics) form your Cyber Resilience Plan.
  • Discover my 5-Step Framework to Cyber Resilience. This is your strategy.
  • Learn how to implement the 5 technology controls of Cyber Essentials so you can reduce your exposure to the most common internet threats  and create the tactical plan for technology risk in your business.
  • Learn how to create your first Cyber Resilience Plan in Section 4 with your Tactical Plan building on the Action Points of Sections 1, 2 and 3.
  • You will leave worry about cyber risk behind as you are empowered to manage cyber as a business risk
  • You can achieve all this without spending the time and money that I have invested to acquire this knowledge.

The Curriculum

The course material is organised into 4 on-demand sections covering:

Section 1: Mindset
  •  Increasing understanding of the sources of cyber risk and types of losses suffered by different business types. Introducing the Surviving Cyber Mindset that will prepare you to handle this key business risk.
Section 2: The 5-Step Framework
  •  How to adopt a strategy that leads to cyber resilience using a 5-Step Framework for managing Technology, People and Governance risks.
Section 3: Reducing Technology Risk
  • How to significantly reduce your exposure to the most common internet threats using Cyber Essentials, a UK Government approved methodology to create a tactical plan for Technology risk in your business.
Section 4: Your Cyber Resilience Plan
  •  Creating your custom-built Cyber Resilience Plan using our template and the results of your Action Points in Sections 1 to 3.

Bonus # 1

 An email 'hotline' to submit questions to me if you have any issues with the course and to send feedback to me.

Bonus # 2

"Criteria for selecting an IT service provider for cyber risk services", a downloadable PDF checklist to help assess your IT Service Provider.

Bonus # 3

"Suggestions to reduce  your exposures to popular Social Media platforms"  a downloadable PDF with privacy and security settings advice. 

Why take this course?

If you  decide to invest in the course, you receive the outlined benefits and the bonuses. 30 days from now, you could have completed your new learning, assuming that you complete one module per week, and have begun to implement your first Cyber Resilience Plan.

In doing so, you will significantly reduce your exposure to Technology risk and will have started to consider People risk and Governance risk. You will have moved away from worry and will feel empowered by the action you are taking and the progress you are making. You are now in control of this problem and have begun your journey to Cyber Resilience.


" What happens if I don't take this course? "

The likely answer is that nothing changes, except perhaps, the threat environment may worsen as cyber risk continues to evolve. You will have at least the same risk that a cyberattack could happen at any time and your worry may well increase until you decide to tackle the issue.

 Cyber risk will remain on the "long finger" - to be dealt with another day. That approach may work but you are hoping that your business does not join the large number of small businesses that have already experienced the trauma of a cyber attack and not survived for very long afterwards. The problem with this approach is that hope is not a great strategy! 

Course Fee

“Surviving Cyber: The Jumpstart Course” is available now to my “first-year” customers at a specially discounted price of just     Euro 197 (including Irish VAT where applicable). The course fee can be paid by credit card. 

Naturally, there are alternative ways to address cyber risk and each carries a cost.

You could consider increasing your spending on technology products and services from your IT Service Provider in the hope that technology alone will address the issues. The cost of this option could be catastrophic if your IT Service Provider does not have the cybersecurity skills to deliver “what’s best for your business”.

You could also consider waiting until you are hacked without a Cyber Resilience Plan in place and risk losing your business and potentially, your livelihood. The financial cost of this outcome is catastrophic, not to mention the personal price of continuing to worry that one day your business will be a victim of a cyber-attack

My Guarantee

I want to make the buying decision easy for you so you don’t have to be concerned about making a mistake on this purchase. Because I am confident that “Surviving Cyber: The Jumpstart Course” will add value for you and that you will be satisfied, I will take away any risk attaching to your decision to invest in the course by offering a 30-day money-back guarantee, no questions asked. Just email me at john@survivingcyber.com and let me know if you decide that you want a refund for any reason.

Application Timeline


“Surviving Cyber: The Jumpstart Course” is immediately available. You can sign up by clicking on the "Register for the Course" buttons on this page. Sign up now at this especially low introductory course fee .

Have any Questions?


Please feel free to contact me at john@survivingcyber.com if you have questions about the Jumpstart course. I will be happy to hear from you.

How to Register


Would you like to save your spot on this self-study course that will help you
jumpstart your efforts by creating your first Cyber Resilience Plan?

Register for the course now, by clicking on the button below.


There's no conceivable system that can stop 1 person in 100 opening a phishing email and that can be all it takes"     Ciaran Martin - Director General for Cyber Security - GCHQ, UK - June 2015 

Free Workshop

Watch my Exclusive Workshop " How Small Business Owners can create
their First Cyber Resilience Plan
in less than 30 days " and learn my 5 Step
Formula. Click on the image.