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Cyber resilience has become a non-negotiable for emergency services, where losing access to critical data can put lives at risk. Rubrik, a zero trust data security company, is working with police, fire and ambulance organisations to make sure their systems are always recoverable, even in the face of ransomware attacks.

Ahead of The Emergency Tech Show, we caught up with Rubrik to find out how it supports the blue light community, its role in policing’s national cyber strategy and what attendees can expect from its live demonstrations.

1. Can you introduce Rubrik and the role you play in securing critical data for the blue light community?

Rubrik is a zero trust data security company. Our primary role is to ensure that critical data for the blue light community is always available, secure, and recoverable, no matter what happens. We protect the core systems that emergency services rely on, from command and control and dispatch systems to patient records and police case files.

Our platform works by creating an immutable and logically air-gapped copy of your data. This means that even if your live network is compromised by ransomware, there is always a clean copy of your data ready for a rapid recovery. For a community where every second counts, we provide the ultimate safety net, ensuring that a cyber attack doesn’t compromise public safety.

2. Data resilience is central to your work, why is that so vital for policing and other emergency services today?

Data resilience is vital because for emergency services, downtime isn’t an inconvenience it’s a direct threat to public safety. If a police force’s command system goes down, they can’t effectively dispatch officers. If an ambulance trust loses access to patient records, it can delay critical care. These services operate 24/7, 365 days a year, and their data needs to be just as resilient.

Furthermore, the integrity of their data is non-negotiable. For policing, evidential data from bodycams or case files must be tamper-proof to be admissible in court. For healthcare, patient data must be accurate. Resilience means more than just being online, it means ensuring the data is trustworthy, secure and instantly available, which is fundamental to the mission of every emergency service.

3. You’ve been working with the NPCC and PDS, how does Rubrik support the wider policing cyber security strategy?

Rubrik’s capabilities directly support the core objectives outlined in the NPCC’s National Policing Cyber Security Strategy, especially those focused on ensuring forces are resilient to attack. The strategy calls for an approach where policing can ‘defend as one’ and minimise the impact of incidents to maintain public trust.

Our platform provides the critical technology to achieve this. Specifically, we support the strategy’s objective to minimise the impact of incidents when they occur. While prevention is key, the strategy acknowledges that attacks will happen. Rubrik provides the ultimate safety net. In a ransomware attack, our immutable, air-gapped backups ensure there is always a clean copy of data that attackers cannot compromise.

This allows forces to recover their critical systems in minutes or hours, not days or weeks, directly fulfilling the strategic need for operational resilience. By guaranteeing recoverability, we remove the need to even consider paying a ransom, which aligns with the national goal of disrupting criminal enterprises. In essence, Rubrik provides the foundational capability for forces to absorb an attack and restore operations quickly, which is a cornerstone of the entire national strategy.

4. In the event of a cyber attack, how does Rubrik help forces protect evidential integrity and recover quickly?

In an attack, our first priority is protecting data integrity. As Rubrik backups are natively immutable on the first copy, digital evidence is protected from being encrypted or altered by malware. This preserves the crucial chain of custody, ensuring the evidence remains admissible in legal proceedings.

For recovery, we enable forces to move incredibly fast. Our platform can identify what data was impacted by the attack and pinpoint the last known clean copy. Using features like Live Mount, we can bring critical systems (like a dispatch application) back online in minutes by running them directly from the backup appliance, while a full restoration happens in the background. Instead of days or weeks of disruption, we help forces restore essential services in a matter of hours, or even minutes, minimising the impact on public safety and police operations.

5. What will you be demonstrating at The Emergency Tech Show and who should come and talk to you?

At The Emergency Tech Show, we’ll be demonstrating a live ransomware attack and recovery simulation. We’ll show attendees how a critical system can be encrypted by malware and then brought back online in just a few minutes using Rubrik. It’s a powerful, real-world demonstration of how to move from a crisis to recovery with speed and confidence.

We’d encourage IT Directors, Chief Information Security Officers (CISOs), data protection leads, and digital transformation managers from across police, fire, ambulance, and associated agencies to come and talk to us. If you are responsible for keeping critical services online and protecting sensitive data, our demonstration will show you how to build true cyber resilience and take the fear out of ransomware.

6. Looking ahead, how do you see data security and resilience evolving for emergency services over the next few years?

Looking ahead, data security will become more proactive and intelligent. The volume of data generated at the ‘edge’ – from bodycams, drones, and in-vehicle tech – will explode. Protecting this data from the point of creation to the core system will be a major focus.

We’ll see a greater reliance on AI and machine learning to detect threats. Instead of just reacting to an attack, systems will proactively hunt for anomalous behaviour that might signal a breach.

Finally, the concept of cyber resilience will become fully embedded. It won’t just be about building walls to keep attackers out, it will be about having a tested, proven ability to get back up and running instantly when an attack inevitably succeeds. The focus will shift from ‘prevention-only’ to ‘resilience-first’.