UK government and business is not taking cyber security
threats seriously enough, former home secretary David Blunkett has
warned.
He believes the threat is being underestimated and could cause
devastating disruption to the
2012 Olympics if the UK is not properly prepared.
But is awareness of and preparedness for cyber security attacks
in UK government and business circles as low as Blunkett
contends?
Not according to a government think-tank the
Cyber Security Knowledge
Transfer Network (CSKTN).
"The UK has been working on preparations for cyber attacks for
some years and is more prepared than most people realise," says
Tony Dyhouse, newly-appointed director of the CSKTN.
According to Dyhouse, terrorists are most likely to use cyber
attacks to take down parts of the UK's critical infrastructure
alongside a more traditional form of attack.
But the UK is well prepared, he says, with much of the UK work
on cyber defences being done with the
Centre for the Protection of
National Infrastructure (CPNI).
"Government and industry have met regularly to discuss the
problem and worked together to put appropriate protection in place
for critical infrastructure," he says.
All organisations should follow the example of putting
proportionate protection in place based on proven strategies for
risk management, business continuity and disaster recover, Dyhouse
says.
However, he says the rapid evolution of Web 2.0 communication
technologies means that more work has to be done in this area.
Government and business need to start preparing to secure social
networking sites and virtual worlds before they become standard
forms of communication.
Dyhouse says to stay ahead of the problem, government and
business need to predict the future role of these technologies and
plan how to stop them being exploited.
"We need to be ahead of that so we can find ways of protecting
users in virtual worlds, where it is more difficult to make
judgement calls about other users," says Dyhouse.
The UK should collaborate with other countries facing the same
threats, he says, to build on cyber security innovation and avoid
duplicating the efforts of others.