The long awaited and much anticipated technology, equipment and support for UK defence and security white paper was finally published on 01 February 2012. Intellect is pleased to see it, especially as our members had put forth significant time in participating in the consultation process. The paper, interestingly titled ‘National security through technology’, covers a lot of ground in 65 pages. It is  intended to be a high level guide to how HM Government (HMG) will procure national security capabilities until the next strategic defence and security review (SDSR) in 2015.  Below are our views of how some items in the paper will affect the defence and security ICT industries. 

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The much anticipated new version of the Cyber Security Strategy is finally out. But is it any good? Well, generally its reception has been good and, from an Intellect point of view, we support it.

In particular, Intellect was very pleased to see some recommendations from our November 2010 paper Improving Cyber Security Partnerships reflected in the strategy. For example, our recommendations about HMG sharing cyber threat information with the private sector,  the adoption of a widely recognisable kitemark, the rationalisation of UK standards applicable to cyber security products and solutions, and greater transparency of public funded research on cyber security have been incorporated into the HMG’s 2011 Cyber Security Strategy. It is also encouraging that our input into this strategy has also been incorporated into the document.

So what does it say?

First of all, the strategy recognises that the Internet is vital to the UK’s economy. Internet businesses comprise 6% of GDP and are slated to create 365,000 jobs over the next five years. Moreover, HMG’s ‘digital by default’ agenda and its move to migrate services to the cloud will mean that the UK will become more and more dependent on cyber space for our public services.

These growth figures are mimicked internationally. For example, e-commerce sees US$8 trillion change hands annually and current estimates suggest that for every 10% increase in broadband access, global GDP will rise, on average, by 1.3%.

As a result, ensuring that the UK is a safe place to do business is critical to the economic wellbeing of the UK.

The strategy also rightly makes the point that cyber security cannot be achieved by placing responsibility solely in the hands of HMG. However, the view from HMG is companies need to ensure their IPR is protected adequately and need to ensure cyber is recognised at a board level. It’s also been suggested by Government that company audit committees should routinely review this risk.

Some companies are already very good at protecting themselves from the cyber threat. Unsurprisingly, these tend to be the Defence Primes or Internet Technology Companies. This means, other companies – both in the UK and worldwide – need to take action to protect themselves and recognise cyber as a real risk to their business. Achieving cyber security does not require massive investment in new technology. It’s largely accepted that 80% of cyber risks can be addressed by applying good practice within companies, which would include keeping anti-malware applications up to date, ensuring operating system and third party application updates are installed quickly and educating staff correctly.

One of the most important recommendations in the new strategy is the call for greater co-operation between HMG and the private sector with regard to cyber security. Organisations such as GCHQ will now need to work in partnership with commercial organisations. This recommendation is being implemented through the development of a hub and node solution to share information and best practice between the public and private sectors. Intellect and its members fully support this activity. In fact, Intellect – along with ADS – has been working with 25 of its members for the last six months to develop a virtual node that will enable companies in the advanced technology industry to share cyber threat information with each other. We hope that, over time, this node will be integrated into HMG’s Hub initiative.

Intellect also praises the strategy’s recognition that cyber presents a host of opportunities to UK business. Therefore, UKTI will be committed to working with trade associations to ‘to turn the threat into opportunity and make strong cyber security a positive for all UK businesses’.

So how will this affect your business?

Intellect suspects that the impact of the Cyber Security Strategy will be that ‘cyber’ will become part of normal business risk assessment. There will be more pressure from clients (particularly public sector clients), shareholders, and auditors to demonstrate how your business is mitigating cyber threats.

These greater expectations will be complemented by the general public, commercial entities, and public sector customers having better knowledge and an easier time in mitigating the cyber threat. This is because ‘kite-marked’ products, cyber-specific standards, and best or good practice guides will be developed and widely distributed.

To support this Intellect will be issuing its good practice guide aimed at SMEs in early to mid 2012 and will continue to work in partnership with ADS to deliver the advanced technology industry node (Virtual Task Force) next year.

Technorati Tags: Cabinet Office, cyber, Cyber Hub, cyber security strategy, Cyber Strategy, GCHQ, Hub, Kitemark

This weekend sees the opening of a global gathering of ICT executives, government officials and policy makers, who are meeting to share ideas on how ICT can drive economic growth, create jobs, overcome social exclusion and improve quality of life. (more…)

This will be a busy week for cyberspace – mostly due to the FCO’s Cyberspace Conference in Central London. Intellect is privileged to be involved in this activity and the event surrounding it. A number of our members will be exhibiting and attending a reception hosted by UKTI, ADS and Intellect. On 02 November 2011 we will speaking at the conference about how to enable businesses to use cyberspace safely.

The internet is clearly critical to the UK’s businesses and its citizens. We can’t function without it.  According to a recent report by McKinsey ‘if internet consumption and expenditures were a sector’ its weight in GDP would be bigger than the energy or agriculture industries. (more…)

Technorati Tags: cyber security, cyber security strategy, cyberspace

Procurement policy hardly gets the pulse racing at the best of times. It is not exactly surprising that police procurement, with all the associated internecine battles between the Home Office, the police service and the police authorities, has often been viewed by politicians as best avoided. It is refreshing then, that the Home Affairs Select Committee has chosen to wade into this quagmire, with its report into the New Landscape for Policing coming up with some intriguing recommendations.

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Technorati Tags: Home Affairs Select Committee, NPIA, police, Police ICT Company, procurement

According to recent figures put out by the EEF, the electronics sector has seen weaker orders intake over the past three months, with associated concerns about output expansion for the next three months. Companies are indeed tightening the belt due to growing challenges in the global economic environment (the cost of gold has increased dramatically) and are taking their time to make investment and recruitment decisions. However, whereas big and medium size companies are better placed to offset losses, the case is slightly different for single-sited UK SMEs, where the loss of an important customer could be business-critical. The relatively short-term nature of SMEs’ order books in the electronics sector is certainly eroding confidence for some businesses. The UK government should acknowledge that and support smaller manufacturing companies, and allow them to thrive as in Germany where SMEs have been the catalyst for economic growth.

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Technorati Tags: DSEi, electronics, manufacturing, SMEs

Yesterday’s post-riots debate in Parliament thrust the role of communications and social media into the spotlight, with suggestions that networks such as BBM should be closed down to prevent rioters communicating. Labour MP Tom Watson called the move “Luddite” and the users of social networking sites erupted in disbelief according to the FT. I was at an Arab IT conference in Damascus earlier this year just after the Egyptian’s closed down their networks. The “hands-off our network.” chatter here does bear a striking resemblance to the chatter there and across the Arab region at the time. But the reality is that things are different here. There is a wider understanding across much, if not most of society of the benefits we enjoy from fast, secure and private communications, and extensive use of social media; from getting a good picture of what’s going on in the street to organising clean-up parties. The Metropolitan Police is using its flickr pages to display images from the disturbances of people they want to identify and Sussex police has 30,000 twitter followers, up from 19,000 a month ago.

Intellect and the tech industry we represent have been working closely with the government since 7/7 to improve intelligence gathering in our connected world, always of course within the legal framework that society has decided it wants. I’d be surprised if, with years of experience of dealing with tech-savvy international criminal gangs and terrorists, the UK authorities need more powers and know-how to deal with communications between rioters. As for turning off the networks – well that really would be Luddite.

Technorati Tags: copycat criminal activity, London riots, Looting and violence, parliament, riot management, rioting, tottenham

Last week saw the publication of the Sixth Report of the Defence Committee on the Strategic Defence & Security Review and the National Security Strategy. As usual, the HCDC (House of Commons Defence Committee) took evidence from a wide variety of ex and serving military officials, defence companies and academics. This inquiry also follows the publication of the Equipment, Support & Technology for UK Defence & Security Green Paper (ESTUDS) and the Defence Reform Review (DRR) – two other major defence strategy documents.

The common view from all of these reports is that the MOD is operationally and financially overcommitted. Intellect agrees that the MOD does, indeed, have many problems, however, the past year has also given us much to be positive about.

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Technorati Tags: Defence Commitee, sixth Report

 Earlier this month Warwick University was invaded by more than 1200 people with a healthy obsession in outer space, including an MP, Astronaut and two Mars rovers. This wasn’t a Star Wars or Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy convention, but the UK Space Conference 2011 Organised by the Intellect events team, and commissioned by the UK Space Agency (more…)

Technorati Tags: Access to space, Arthur C Clarke awards, Esero UK, intellect, NASA, Policy, Space, Space business, Space industry, Space tech 2011, UK Space

The Ministry of Defence (MoD) has been very busy lately, the Secretary of State (SoS) for Defence, Dr Liam Fox in particular. This week the focus was not on current operations in Afghanistan and Libya but rather on structural reforms that the ministry must implement if it is to equip itself for current and future operations.

Dr Fox recently announced the completion of the long-awaited Defence Reform Review.
Although the supplier community has been patiently waiting for ‘Defence Reform: An independent report into the structure and management of the Ministry of Defence’ since the coalition came to power, the document provides the defence industry with only some of the information it requires to plan for the future. (more…)

Technorati Tags: defence reform review, Dr Fox, information, MoD