UK cyber-strategy suffers as spooks meet the suits

Abstract

In the era of Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden, the ‘old-school’ spying role of GCHQ, the UK's surveillance and intelligence gathering centre, has never been far from the headlines. So it may come as a surprise to many that this summer, GCHQ's young apprentices and students were out and about at the Cheltenham Science Festival, encouraging children to join in some cyber-attack and encryption games – with GCHQ student Danielle describing it as “a great chance for us to show the exciting, innovative and creative side of GCHQ”. The UK Government's flagship £650m National Cyber Security Programme has tackled state-sponsored attacks and cybercrime, created new apprenticeships in cyber-security, funded research and much more. But the four-year programme has involved an increasing number of government organisations, and this has led to accusations by some of the private sector firms involved of confusion and lack of co-ordination. They also feel the scheme is failing to do enough to help SMEs, and board directors generally, understand the cyber-threat.