Villains are moving on-line. Cheltenham is leading the fightback.
That was the message from this week’s opening by HM the Queen of the GCHQ-run National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) in London.
We’ve seen the trend for a while, but the statistics from the last couple of years are startling. In 2015, twice as many national security-level cyber incidents were detected compared with 2014. Today the UK is responding to around 60 serious cyber-attacks a month.
And it’s not just hostile State actors probing weaknesses in national infrastructure. Criminals are targeting individuals too. They calculate that the UK offers rich pickings. We have the highest percentage of individual internet usage of any G7 economy. One eighth of the UK’s GDP comes from the digital economy - the highest in the G20. That’s a good thing, but it means we need to strengthen our defence and deterrence. And – yes – that means developing the ability to strike back hard if circumstances demand.
So it was great to see some of the brilliant staff from GCHQ welcoming HM the Queen to the NCSC in London on Tuesday. The NCSC is about making the UK the hardest target. As well as countering high-end attacks on government and business, the NCSC also aims to protect the economy and wider society. It will be more public facing and accessible and will also protect a far wider range of sectors, rather than just government and national security-related industries.
None of this should be confused with the Cyber Innovation Centre, which is based here in Cheltenham. The CIC is about harnessing the digital know-how from the extraordinary talent at GCHQ to nurture civilian start-ups. That’s something I’ve been championing in the town since before my election in 2015. The early ‘accelerator’ is now up and running, with six local businesses already being supported. But this is just the beginning for my vision for Cheltenham. With focus, determination (and making a nuisance of myself with infrastructure funding demands from central Government!) this has the capacity to be a major boost to our town’s economy and put Cheltenham firmly on the national and international map.
This vision would not be possible without the skill and professionalism of GCHQ staff. Each of them has chosen to serve the public, no doubt for far less personal reward than they could receive in the private sector. We owe them all a profound debt of gratitude.