[ISN] GCHQ steps up strategy to combat cyber-attacks, Brown announces

From: InfoSec News <alerts_at_private>
Date: Fri, 26 Jun 2009 04:42:30 -0500 (CDT)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/jun/25/cyberspace-war-computer-hacking-fraud

By Richard Norton-Taylor
guardian.co.uk
25 June 2009

Intelligence agencies led by GCHQ, the government's electronic spy 
centre, are to step up operations against a growing threat of 
cyber-attacks, Gordon Brown announced today as part of the government's 
updated national security strategy.

A new Cyber-Security Operations Centre will be attached to GCHQ's 
headquarters in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire. A separate Office of 
Cyber-Security will coordinate policy in Whitehall under senior official 
Neil Thompson, with staff recruited from MI5, MI6 and other government 
agencies.

Brown said: "Just as in the 19th century we had to secure the seas for 
our national safety and prosperity, and in the 20th century we had to 
secure the air, in the 21st century we also have to secure our position 
in cyberspace in order to give people and businesses the confidence they 
need to operate safely there."

Cyberspace was a new area where "hostile states, terrorists and 
criminals can all threaten UK security interests", the Cabinet Office 
said. The Association of Chief Police Officers is already drawing up a 
new strategy on law enforcement and cyber-crime.

However, Lord West, the Home Office security minister, was unwilling to 
reveal the number and scale of cyber-attacks against British government 
agencies or private companies.

[...]


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Received on Fri Jun 26 2009 - 02:42:30 PDT

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