Cyber Security Strategy to step up Britain’s resilience

Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster Steve Barclay is announcing that Britain’s public services will be strengthened to further protect them from the risk of being shut down by hostile cyber threats.

Launching the first ever Government Cyber Security Strategy, Barclay is set to outline the cyber threat that government and wider public sector systems face in a speech in central London, during which he will say that Britain is now the third most targeted country in the world in cyberspace from hostile states.

Of the 777 incidents managed by the National Cyber Security Centre between September 2020 and August 2021, around 40 per cent were aimed at the public sector.

The new strategy will be backed by £37.8 million invested to help local authorities boost their cyber resilience - protecting the essential services and data on which citizens rely on including housing benefit, voter registration, electoral management, school grants and the provision of social care.

The new strategy outlines how central government and the public sector will continue to ensure that public services can function in the face of growing cyber threats. It will step up the country’s cyber resilience by better sharing data, expertise and capabilities to allow government to ‘Defend As One’, meaning that government cyber defence is far greater than the sum of its parts.

Key announcements in the strategy include establishing a new Government Cyber Coordination Centre (GCCC), to better coordinate cyber security efforts across the public sector and a new cross-government vulnerability reporting service, which will allow security researchers and members of the public to easily report issues they identify with public sector digital services.

Barclay said: “Our public services are precious and without them individuals can’t access the support that they rely on. If we want people to continue to access their pensions online, social care support from local government or health services, we need to step up our cyber defences. The cyber threat is clear and growing. But government is acting - investing over £2 billion in cyber, retiring legacy IT systems and stepping up our skills and coordination.”