UK Govt to spend £650 million on cyber security over four years

The Foreign Secretary of the United Kingdom, Mr. William Hague has announced that the UK government will spend about £650 million in the next four years to boost cyber security. Hague joined legion of others around the world in seeking  the preservation of the internet and its expansion for the benefits of the digital age.

Hague was speaking at the Budapest Conference on Cyberspace where he described the need for the preservation and expansion of the internet as “one of the greatest global and strategic challenges of our time”.Sounding a note of optimism, Hague warned against any feeling of pessimism saying the internet has been an unprecedented engine for growth, for social progress and innovation across the globe and in all areas of human endeavour.

Although he affirmed that there is a darker side to the internet, he said they believe in the United Kingdom that it is “time to shine a strong light on those shadows”.

“We are calling for a new international consensus on rules of the road to guide future behaviour in cyberspace and to combat the worst abuses of it. We are not calling for a new treaty between governments which would be cumbersome to agree, hard to enforce and too narrow in its focus. Instead, last year I proposed a set of seven principles as a basis for more effective cooperation between states, business and organisations” he said.

The seven principles he proposed included the need for governments to act proportionately in cyberspace and in accordance with international law; the need for everyone to have the ability to access cyberspace, including the skills, technology, confidence and opportunity to do so; the need for users of cyberspace to show tolerance and respect for diversity of language, culture and ideas.

Others are the need to ensure that cyberspace remains open to innovation and the free flow of ideas, information and expression; the need to respect individual rights of privacy and to provide proper protection to intellectual property; the need for us all to work together collectively to tackle the threat from criminals acting online; and the promotion of a competitive environment which ensures a fair return on investment in networks, services and content.

Arguing in support of the seven principles he proposed, Hague gave reasons why he believed that the task remains an urgent, unavoidable and essential one. One of the reasons is the inability of many states to muster cyber resources to counter other states’ sponsored cyber attacks.

According to him cyberspace is emerging as a new dimension in conflicts of the future and many nations simply do not yet have the defences or the resources to counter state-sponsored cyber attack.

He said “If we do not find ways of agreeing on principles to moderate such behaviour and to deal with its consequences, then some countries could find themselves vulnerable to a wholly new strategic threat: effectively held to ransom by hostile states”.

Hague identified  the threat posed by organised cyber crime as currently much larger saying it has never been easier to become a cyber criminal than it is today. Hague explained that it is now possible to buy off-the-shelf malicious software, designed to steal bank details, for as little as £3,000, including access to a 24-hour technical support line.

Giving personal references, he said in his position as Foreign Secretary, he has seen frequent evidence of deliberate and organised attacks against intellectual property and government networks in the United Kingdom.

“Earlier this year, a well-protected international company was breached via a foreign subsidiary. Hackers used a spear-phishing email attack to gain access to the subsidiary’s network. From there, they stole many thousands of passwords, including those for the parent company’s file servers. From that file server, they were able to steal 100GB of the parent company’s sensitive intellectual property, roughly equivalent to a document made up of 20 million pages of A4”. He said.

He said these attacks which recognise no border and with all countries in the firing lines are not aimed solely at commercial organisations but are extended to government departments and agencies.

Hague emphasised that efforts to suppress the internet are wrong and are bound to fail over time saying that governments which attempt this are erecting barricades against an unstoppable tide, and acting against their own long term economic interests and security.

For him, the mass protest around the world over the anti-Islam trailer is not enough reason to block access to internet content saying the video “was a contemptible piece of work, designed to provoke outrage and we deplore the fact that innocent people died in the violence that followed”.

Speaking on the contribution of the United Kingdom to ensure that the internet is expanded and protected, he said that the UK is determined to remain a world leader in cyber security.

“We want our country to be a pre-eminent safe space for e-commerce and intellectual property online. We are significantly increasing our cyber capabilities and have committed an extra £650 million of government funding over a four year period”.

“I can therefore announce today that the UK is developing a new Centre for Global Cyber-Security Capacity Building in the United Kingdom, and we will be investing £2m a year to offer countries independent advice on how to build secure and resilient cyberspace, improving co-ordination and promoting good governance online”.

Hague said that this practical initiative will help close the gap between supply and demand for capacity building and to ensure that people make better use of the skills and resources available internationally.

In closing, he spoke about what he foresees as the future of the internet in the United Kingdom.

“So in the United Kingdom we aspire to a future cyberspace that is characterised by openness and transparency. A future where safe, trusted and reliable access to the internet is the norm irrespective of where you are born, in which we are able to harness the power of new technologies to close the digital divide, to spur growth and innovation, to protect cultural diversity and to increase accountability and transparency”.

“A future where the flow of business and ideas drives down barriers to trade and increases choice for citizens. A future where human rights are respected online as well as offline. And a future where cooperation between nations makes it harder for people to abuse the internet for crime, terrorism, cyber attack or political ends. This is what we hope the process begun in London and taken forward in Budapest and Korea can take us closer to agreeing.

“And we will do all we can in Britain to support such agreement: promoting the social and economic benefits of the internet and human rights and freedom online; developing our own skills, capabilities and defences at home, sharing that expertise with others abroad, and working with our allies to help win the argument that an open internet is the only way to support security and prosperity for all”

Median Rights Agenda