Defence Secretary Penny Mordaunt has announced £22 million in funding for Army cyber operations centres.
Speaking this evening at the NATO Cyber Defence Pledge Conference in London, Defence Secretary Penny Mordaunt will address the need for the UK and NATO members to recognise offensive cyber as central to modern warfare.
According to a release from the Ministry of Defence:
“As the UK has already demonstrated against Daesh in the Middle East, it can be a vital tool to keep people in the UK and overseas safe from virtual and physical threats.
The military continues to develop its cyber capabilities as part of the £1.9 billion investment into the National Cyber Security Strategy, focused on boosting the UK’s cyber security. Recent UK innovations have included the creation of the National Cyber Security Centre which brings together government, intelligence agencies and the private sector into one organisation. The state-of-the-art Defence Cyber School, which marked its first anniversary in March this year, is also training the next generation of cyber experts.”
The Defence Secretary is now expected to expand that commitment, announcing £22 million in funding to stand up new Army cyber operations centres across the UK.
Defence Secretary Penny Mordaunt will say:
“We know all about the dangers. Whether the attacks come from Russia, China or North Korea. Whether they come from hacktivists, criminals or extremists. Whether its malware or fake news. Cyber can bring down our national infrastructure and undermine our democracy.
It’s time to pay more than lip service to cyber. We must convince our adversaries their advances simply aren’t worth the cost. Cyber enemies think they can act with impunity. We must show them they can’t. That we are ready to respond at a time and place of our choosing in any domain, not just the virtual world.
We need coherent cyber offense as well as defence. So today I can announce we will be investing £22m to create new cyber operations centres.”
The centres will work with existing Army capabilities, such as 77 Brigade but will also have regular contact with joint and other national security organisations, say the MoD.
Interesting news. This area interests me greatly but it is difficult to keep track as they seem to reinvent the wheel yearly. Centres, how many? Where? And who directly commands? And how do they fit alongside the existing organisations, which are myriad and quite confusing to keep track of? – the 3 JCU’s, the Cyber Security Operations Centre at Cheltenham, the Cyber Security Operations Centre within GOSCC at Corsham, the National Cyber Security Centre in London, the Joint Cyber Electromagnetic Activities Group at Digby, the Army AISU near London, and so on. The DS says these centres are “offensive” I… Read more »
That’s a silly image to use to headline this story.
No it isn’t.
It’s generic of all of George’s Cyber articles.
Keyboard warriors and all that. Pretty apt in my view.
That’s precisely it, people often forget we can’t just pick and choose imagery, we need to be able to use it legally.