British Government’s National Enquiry Into Cybersecurity

British government will be launching a national inquiry into cybersecurity, following rising cyber attacks on businesses, banks and retailers across the UK. Jon Geater, CTO at Thales e-Security commented below.

Jon Geater, CTO at Thales e-Security:

“It is encouraging to see the government taking further, and necessary, steps to review of the nation’s cybersecurity strategy especially as cyber-attacks – across all sectors – are only rising in this increasingly internet-centric world. More and more commercial industry and home equipment is beginning to play a part in critical systems and cyber attackers can exploit this to great effect.  Successfully derailing critical infrastructure or hacking into government databases isn’t the stuff of fiction anymore: this threat is real and growing, and it is crucial that robust cyber security defences are in place to safeguard our vital services and valuable citizen data from this growing risk.

The launch of this national inquiry into cybersecurity, along with the recent launch of the National Cyber Security Centre, show that the UK government is not only taking a threat-based approach to security – in which it actively analyses the types of attacks it might realistically face – but is also genuinely moving the state of security forwards.  It has decried scare tactics and the ‘monster under the bed’ approach of reactive endpoint security in favour of active conscious protection. The government is explicitly recognising the requirement to work with industry experts and forward-looking companies to share the responsibility of keeping society safe, as networks and software become the lifeblood of our critical infrastructure and daily lives.”