UK Government spends £2 billion on Cybersecurity - But is this enough and will it prevent it?

UK Government spends £2 billion on Cybersecurity - But is this enough and will it prevent it?

Things must be getting bad in the world of online cyber crime. And in fact, more and more cases are coming to light of people who have been a victim of cyber crime in some way. So much so that the UK government has just stumped up £2 billion pounds to find ways to tackle online cyber criminals and scammers and defend UK businesses.

Conservative MP Philip Hammond said at the the National Cyber Security Strategy in London, "foreign actors are developing techniques that threaten the country's electrical grid and airports. And that "If we do not have the ability to respond in cyberspace to an attack which takes down our power network - leaving us in darkness or hits our air traffic control system grounding our planes - we would be left with the impossible choice of turning the other cheek, ignoring the devastating consequences, or resorting to a military response."

The money will help cyber crime police to tackle organised online criminal networks and gangs as well as some of the money going towards educating and training cyber security experts. The government knows how powerful the Internet can be and the effect it can have on and for businesses, especially those in the tech industry, and if they want Britain to be the best place in the world to be a tech business then it's vitally important that that Britain be as safe as it can be for people to do digital business of any kind. Getting people to trust in the infrastructure is critical when our economy so heavily relies on the Internet itself to power those tech businesses.

This all follows on from a warning received from MI5 recently that Russia is seen as an increased cyber threat to our digital economy. It is using its whole range of state organs and powers to push its foreign policy abroad in increasingly aggressive ways - involving propaganda, espionage, subversion and cyber-attacks! In an article found in the The Guardian recently. Although The Kremlin dismiss this as true.

MI5 are warning of aggressive tactics by Russia in cyberspace as a sign of them trying to deal with this virtual threat. Well we've heard of stories of cyber espionage and crime for years already but the new thing here is that there is much more willingness by other states and entities to take much more aggressive, perhaps even truly destructive moves on the Internet that could effect the very fabric and integrity of Britain itself.

Sir Tim Berners-Lee Not Impressed

Remember that guy that invented the Internet? Sir Tim Berners-Lee. I posted about him a while back when we saw The Internet Celebrating its 25th Birthday Anniversary. Well he has told the BBC that the government is very right to be concerned by this and put this money up to prevent foriegn cyber crime affecting the British cyber economy. It doesn't matter if it's just some kids writing malicious scripts in their bedroom or basement, or whether it's on a global scale, we've seen the effect that these attacks can have on websites and businesses such as the recent massive DDOS attack that effected PayPal and many other big online services.


The UK should have a knowledgeable and strongly equipped police force and cyber-intelligence agency that can arm us with the tools needed to be able to defend against these attacks as they happen or before they do to prevent them from happening. Sir Tim Berners-Lee says that the UK must must now keep up with the scale and pace of the threats we face, including those carried out by foreign perpetrators who then try to deny their involvement. And that the ability to detect, trace and retaliate in kind is likely to be the best deterrent. And that we will not only be able to defend ourselves in cyberspace, but we will strike back in kind when we are attacked!

I like this guys thinking! This kind of stuff, these types of cyber attacks are no longer the stuff of spy thrillers and action movies, cyber-attacks are a reality and they are happening now. Our adversaries are varied - organised criminal groups, "'hacktivists" and untrained teenagers in foreign states.

Basically the money will go towards funding new anti-cyber criminal departments and "automated systems" that will be able to detect and filter out any malware or spam before it even reaches UK residents. Such campaigns and tools have helped in the government in the past to see where certain emails come from in the detection and prevention of tax fraud and will fund the program until the end of 2020.

It will also go towards funding a national scheme that will retrain professionals as cyber security experts. But there is increasing talk amongst other cyber security experts that the cash wont really be enough to prevent it from happening on a global scale and that it's getting harder and harder to get young people today interested in learning computer science let along getting them interested in cybersecurity and that the money should be put into teaching kids early at school about cybersecurity early enough to influence the subjects they decide upon at school and pairing an image for them of just how interesting and rewarding a career in cybersecurity can be.

What do you think of this move by the British government on tacking cyber-crime?

Is it enough to prevent it from happening and should it be spent differently?

Will other countries governments likely follow suit?

Can we ever stop cyber crime from happening completely?