Government launches cyber security division

Summary: The UK Government has officially launched a new cyber security team which aims to manage cyber security threats and will function as a hub for sage and considered security response thinking.

The £860m Computer Emergency Response Team (Cert-UK) was launched by Cabinet Office Minister Francis Maude to deal with cyber issues of national importance and will report to Government and industry with relevant information, advice and alerts.

According to Mr Maude, 93% of large corporations had a computer security breach over the past financial year, costing somewhere between £450,000 and £850,000.

However, Mr Maude also outlined the potential opportunities on offer for organisations which can be early adopters of cyber technology and which can be innovators in providing enhanced security measures to other firms, stating that security innovations were “an essential feature of – and a massive opportunity for – the UK’s economic recovery”.

Chris Gibson, director of Cert-UK, said: “The launch of Cert-UK is a milestone in the development of the UK’s cyber security capabilities helping the UK to become more resilient.

“Cert-UK will build on existing arrangements for supporting the critical national infrastructure, and incorporate the Cyber Security Information Sharing Partnership which was launched last year and has proved extremely effective as a means of collaborating between industry and government.”