Government publishes blueprint to protect UK from cyber threats

The National Cyber Strategy builds on the significant progress made on cyber over the last five years which has seen the UK cyber security sector grow rapidly, with over 1,400 businesses generating revenues of £8.9 billion last year, in turn supporting 46,700 skilled jobs and attracting significant amounts of overseas investment.

Through the National Cyber Strategy, the Government is calling on all parts of society to play their role in reinforcing the UK’s economic and strategic strengths in cyber space. In practice, this means more diversity in the workforce, levelling up the cyber sector across all UK regions, expanding offensive and defensive cyber capabilities and prioritising cyber security in the workplace, Boardrooms and digital supply chains.

Cyber is revolutionising the way we live our lives and our approach to national security. That’s why the UK is adopting a new and comprehensive approach to strengthen its position as a responsible and democratic cyber power that’s able to protect and promote the nation’s interests in and through cyber space.

This new National Cyber Strategy strengthens the UK’s cyber security, keeping the home nations ahead of their adversaries and strengthening their ability to act in cyber space, as well as their capability to influence and shape tomorrow’s technologies such that they are safe, secure and open.

Five core pillars

To achieve all of this, the National Cyber Strategy is built around five core pillars:

*Strengthening the UK’s cyber ecosystem, investing in its people and skills and deepening the partnership between Government, academia and industry

*Building a resilient and prosperous digital UK on the basis that reducing cyber risks to businesses means that they can maximise the economic benefits of digital technology, while citizens are secure online and confident that their data is being protected

*Taking the lead in the technologies vital to cyber power, building our industrial capability and developing frameworks to secure future technologies

*Advancing UK global leadership and influence for a more secure, prosperous and open international order, working with Government and industry partners and sharing the expertise that underpins UK cyber power

*Detecting, disrupting and deterring our adversaries to enhance UK security in and through cyber space, making more integrated, creative and routine use of the UK’s full spectrum of levers

Advancing national interests

Steve Barclay, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, said: “The new National Cyber Strategy transforms how the UK will advance its national interests in cyber space and is a major milestone following the publication of the Integrated Review earlier this year.”

He added: “It sets out a clear vision for building cyber expertise in all parts of the country, strengthening our offensive and defensive capabilities and ensuring the whole of society plays its part in the UK’s cyber future. The document comes with record funding to match its ambition.”

The Government is announcing a new ‘Cyber Explorers’ online training platform which will teach young people cyber skills in classrooms, and is taking steps to improve diversity in the cyber workforce through a new adult scheme which will ensure that people from all backgrounds have access to these high priority skilled jobs. In addition, a new ‘Royal Charter’ for the UK Cyber Security Council has been approved by Her Majesty The Queen, which will help improve cyber careers and bring the cyber workforce into line with other professional occupations such as engineering.

To promote growth and innovation in the UK’s cyber industry, the Government is investing in the Cyber Runway scheme which is helping 107 innovators grow and develop their businesses, with the majority of member companies outside of London and the South East, 45% of them led by women and 52% run by founders from black and minority ethnic groups.

Funding for these growth and skills programmes will be reoriented away from large, often London-based initiatives to a regionally delivered model which will mean more jobs and better opportunities for people across the UK.

Improved response

Priti Patel, the Home Secretary, explained: “Cyber crime ruins lives and facilitates further crimes such as fraud, stalking and domestic abuse. Billions of pounds are lost each year to cyber criminals who steal and/or hold peoples’ personal data to ransom and who disrupt key public services or vital sectors of the national economy.”

Patel continued: “This new National Cyber Strategy will significantly improve the Government’s response to the ever-changing threat from cyber crime and strengthen law enforcement’s response in partnership with the National Cyber Security Centre and the National Cyber Force. We all have a part to play in protecting ourselves from cyber crime. It’s important that, as a society, we take this threat seriously.”

Sir Jeremy Fleming, director GCHQ, noted: “The National Cyber Strategy builds on the country’s strong foundations in cyber security that GCHQ’s work has been part of, and particularly so through the National Cyber Security Centre. It goes beyond that, though. It brings together the full range of cyber activities, from skills to communities and on to the use of offensive cyber capabilities through the newly established National Cyber Force. It shows how the UK can build capacity across the country to continue to prosper from the opportunities of cyber space. As a leading and responsible cyber power, we can build alliances with democratic partners around the world to protect a free, open and peaceful cyber space.”

Industry comment

David Carroll, managing director of Nominet Cyber, commented: “The new National Cyber Strategy represents a step change in the UK’s approach. It builds upon previous National Cyber Strategies, but what’s striking now is its breadth. It’s a comprehensive whole-of-Government and whole-of-nation approach. It places cyber power at the very heart of the UK’s foreign policy agenda, and recognises that every part of the National Cyber Strategy depends upon international engagement.”

Carroll added: “This document ‘puts a stake in the ground’ for the UK as a responsible and democratic cyber power on an international stage. There’s a lot to unpack here, but the implementation programme shows boldness in its ambition, which is to be welcomed.”

Further, Carroll observed: “Our economy is more digitalised than ever, and we are reliant on increasingly diffuse infrastructures to maintain essential services. The drivers of change in cyber space are many and varied, as the National Cyber Strategy makes clear. This increasingly complex landscape will make it harder for states, businesses and society to understand the risks they face and, indeed, how they should protect themselves.”

According to Carroll, an increased dependency on third party suppliers of managed services is creating new risks, as witnessed this week as the world has scrambled to deal with the LOG4J vulnerability.

“As the scale and speed of the changes to our digital landscape outpaces the frameworks, laws and institutions that govern the way we live and work,” suggested Carroll, “we must be prepared for a strategic competition. Governments around the world will be looking for capabilities at national scale, rather than piecemeal cyber security solutions. Governments will search for solutions and capabilities to protect entire ecosystems and economies. It’s this multi-level, whole-of-society approach, with strategic international collaboration, that will allow the UK to harness its ‘cyber power’, defend its citizens and be a responsible global citizen in its own right.”

*The new National Cyber Strategy can be read online at GOV.UK