Major Increase In Cyber Defence Spending Expected

The government is expected to announce a major increase in spending on defence against cyber attacks next week. The figure of £1 billion has been mentioned but nothing will be known for sure until next week.

What is spooking the spooks at the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), and therefore the government, are attacks such as the Stuxnet worm incidents last month. For the first time, a targeted virus had been created that could cripple the industrial infrastructure of a country, yet nobody could trace who was responsible.

Step-Change In Investment

This could be the motivation behind Neil Thompson, director of the Office of Cybersecurity and Communications (CS&C), talking of “cheap, quick and deniable” cyber attacks.

Thompson, speaking at a Royal United Services Institute conference, showed concern over the possibility of disruption to utility services. He said that it now requires a “step-change” in the government’s approach to cyber threats.

On Monday, the UK will start to hear about this increase in spending when the government presents the new National Security Strategy. This analysis of the threats and risks to be faced will set the backdrop for Tuesday’s Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR).

The SDSR is the overall spending plan for the UK defence services, and somewhere in those details will be the expected boost to spending on cyber security.

ISPs under pressure

Apart from allocating funds to create a defence infrastructure, it is believed that pressure will begin to be brought to bear on Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to clean up the Internet traffic passing through their servers. This will be a controversial issue because any kind of government interference with this section of the private sector has been viewed as opening the doors to other censorial acts

In a speech to the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) this week, GCHQ director Ian Lobban said, “Just because I, as a national security official, am giving a speech about cyber, I don’t want you to take away the impression that it is solely a national security or defence issue. It goes to the heart of our economic well-being and national interest.”