Brown unveils cyber-security strategy

The government has launched the UK's first ever cyber security strategy, saying it recognises that the country must be faster and more effective in tackling online attacks.



The strategy, deployed to give a "coherent approach" to the many agencies already tasked to fight internet crime, will require an undisclosed amount of "additional new funding."



The injection will be used to set up a Cyber Security Operations Centre, alongside GCHQ - the government's listening post, to unify the efforts to defend the UK's critical IT systems.



According to its initial brief, the centre will monitor, analyse and counter cyber attacks, while ensuring that the UK's response to serious IT incidents in the public sector is stepped up.



For providing the co-ordinated protection of the UK's core IT systems, the centre is likely to come up against hostile states, terrorist groups, criminal gangs and hackers.



These online menaces will also be within the crosshairs of a separate body – the Office of Cyber Security, tasked to lead on cyber crime affecting government and businesses.



Under the leadership of a single official, the office will ensure that both public and private sector outfits have a shared picture of the latest online risks.



To this end, computer systems for coordinating vital intelligence about digital threats will be improved, and so help with making both sectors' systems more resilient.



Both new agencies are expected to tap into the government's existing staff and resources to populate their ranks, though some fresh recruitment is expected, Robert Hannigan, the prime minister's security adviser, has signalled.



A leading security company declined to comment on the anticipated staffing strategy, while the Corporate IT Forum, which has called for firms to get their own cyber crime fighter, also offered no comment.



The CBI, the employers' organisation, cautiously welcomed the overall strategy for cyber crime, by saying the security of the online environment was "key" to developing its markets.



Yet head of knowledge economy at the group Sara Draper said: "We do wonder how the two new bodies…fit with existing bodies such as the recently established Police Central E-crime Unit. The test for business will be whether they result in a genuinely more coordinated approach."



In total, the two new organisations will have to oversee and co-ordinate the activities of the 16 bodies already involved in tackling cyber crime – a growing menace that the US deployed a national strategy to combat in May.



Prime Minister Gordon Brown said: "Just as in the nineteenth century we had to secure the seas for our national safety and prosperity, and in the twentieth century we had to secure the air, in the twenty first century we also have to secure our position in cyber space in order to give people and businesses the confidence they need to operate safely there."