The UK is planning a national cybersecurity centre to fight
growing threats from organised crime and foreign
governments.
Gordon Brown is expected to announce details of the initiative
in a revised security strategy to be published this month,
according to
The Guardian.
The move will raise the UK's cybersecurity efforts after years
of being kept deliberately low-profile.
The planned UK centre is said to be similar to the White House
office ordered by US president
Barack Obama to co-ordinate cybersecurity-related government
policy.
Unveiling a cybersecurity review earlier this month, Obama said
the cyber threat is one of the most serious economic and national
security challenges faced by the US.
The UK cybersecurity centre is being developed in parallel and
in collaboration with the US and other governments.
The UK has a well-established programme of promoting
international collaboration on a co-ordinated response to cyber
threats, said Tony Dyhouse, director of the UK's Cyber Security
Knowledge Transfer Network (CSKTN).
The US response to cybercrime has led to increased calls for a
simiar moves in the UK, where there are several different
organisations fighting the cyber threat.
Security experts believe a single office under a government
cyber czar will be more effective in fighting the growing threat
from foreign goverments.
Since 2007, Jonathan Evans, head of MI5, has warned that the
UK's banks, accounting and legal firms are under attack from
foreign state organisations.
In March, a Canadian security research group
exposed an international cyber spy operation that targeted
government computers.
The China-based operation, dubbed GhostNet, infiltrated over
1,000 computers in more than 100 countries, including the UK.
As well as China, Western governments suspect Russia and North
Korea of being state sponsors of cybercriminal activities.