[LINK] UK Cyber Security Strategy

Tom Worthington tom.worthington at tomw.net.au
Sun Nov 27 10:10:05 AEDT 2011


The UK Government's "Cyber Security Strategy: Protecting and promoting 
the UK in a digital world", was released 25 November 2011 and has four 
objectives:

1. Tackling cyber crime and making the UK one of the most secure places 
in the world to do business in cyberspace.
2. Making the UK more resilient to cyber attack and better able to 
protect our interests in cyberspace. Cabinet Office.
3. Helping to shape an open, vibrant and stable cyberspace which the UK 
public can use safely and that supports open societies.
4. Building the UK’s cross-cutting knowledge, skills and capability to 
underpin all our cyber security objectives.

From: UK Cyber Security Strategy, UK Cabinet Office, 25 November 2011: 
http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/sites/default/files/resources/The%20UK%20Cyber%20Security%20Strategy-%20web%20ver.pdf#page=8



The UK approach is broadly the same as Australia, with a "GCHQ Joint 
Cyber Unit" having a central role (equivalent to Australia's DSD Cyber 
Security Operations Center): http://www.dsd.gov.au/infosec/csoc.htm

There is also £650m over four years for a new "National Cyber Security 
Programme" (NCSP), a "Cyber Crime Unit" in the National Crime Agency, an 
expanded Centre for Protection of the National Infrastructure: 
http://www.cpni.gov.uk/

The "Get Safe Online" education program will continue and a voluntary 
code of conduct with ISPs to warn customers their computers are 
compromised: http://www.getsafeonline.org/


CADRE OF CYBER SECURITY PROFESSIONALS

The UK strategy includes a section on "Encouraging a cadre of cyber 
security professionals":

* Drive up the skill levels of information assurance and cyber security 
professionals by establishing programmes of certified specialist 
training by March 2012.
* Continue to support the Cyber Security Challenge (see below) as a way 
of bringing new talent into the profession.
* Strengthen postgraduate education to expand the pool of experts with 
in-depth knowledge of cyber.
* Strengthen the UK’s academic base by developing a coherent 
cross-sector research agenda on cyber, building on work done by the 
Government Office for Science.
* Establish, with GCHQ’s help, a research institute in cyber security, 
with an indicative budget of £2 million over 3.5 years.
* Commissioning research clarifying the extent, pattern and nature of 
the demand for cyber security skills across the private sector.

From: UK Cyber Security Strategy, UK Cabinet Office, 25 November 2011: 
http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/sites/default/files/resources/The%20UK%20Cyber%20Security%20Strategy-%20web%20ver.pdf#page=41



The Australian Computer Society (ACS) also recommended education to the 
Australian Government for their Cyber white paper, to be released in 
early 2012: 
http://www.acs.org.au/index.cfm?action=show&conID=201111160944455149

The ACS Computer Professional Education Program already includes 
Information Security as an elective, offered on-line worldwide: 
http://www.acs.org.au/cpeprogram/index.cfm?action=show&conID=infosec


ps: I have extracted the Executive Summary and section on education from 
the PDF of the UK Cyber Security Strategy and converted it to HTML at:

1. Executive Summary: 
http://blog.tomw.net.au/2011/11/uk-cyber-security-strategy.html#summary
2. Education: 
http://blog.tomw.net.au/2011/11/uk-cyber-security-strategy.html#cadre


-- 
Tom Worthington FACS CP, TomW Communications Pty Ltd. t: 0419496150
PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617, Australia  http://www.tomw.net.au
Liability limited by a scheme approved under Professional Standards 
Legislation

Adjunct Senior Lecturer, Research School of Computer Science,
Australian National University http://cs.anu.edu.au/courses/COMP7310/



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