Professor Paul Cornish contributes to report on the UK’s Cyber Security
19 September 2011
Professor Paul Cornish (from the Department of Politics, Languages & International Studies) together with David Livingstone, Dave Clemente and Claire Yorke, have published a report titled Cyber Security and the UK’s Critical National Infrastructure.
Summary of report
Dependence on information and communications technology is a defining feature of a modern, interconnected and knowledge-based society and economy. The machinery of government, critical national infrastructure (CNI) – including the provision of essential services such as water, gas, electricity, communications and banking – and much of the straightforward private life of individual people are all ICT-dependent to a large degree. With this dependency can come vulnerability to aggressors, criminals and even the merely mischievous.
The United Kingdom National Security Strategy and Strategic Defence and Security Review released in October 2010 promoted cyber security to a Tier One risk to national security, and its high status was reinforced by the UK government’s allocation of £650 million to cyber security and resilience.
What should be done to meet the challenge? And who or what is best placed to tackle the problem, given that £650 million will hardly enable the government to counter all conceivable cyber threats and that, in any case, the vast majority of critical infrastructure in the UK is privately owned? There is currently no publicly available, comprehensive account of the UK national cyberspace stakeholder environment.
The report fills that gap and shows that in too many key areas cyber security is poorly understood.
Further information
The report is published by Chatham House and is available to read online.
