More time should be spent on training and enabling people and police and on sharing information to create a more secure United Kingdom.
Speaking at the (ISC)2 EMEA Congress in London, former Home Secretary David Blunkett MP, said that we commonly find that simple solutions can work, and while companies do spend money, he asked if they are spending it wisely?
He said: “Training is of critical importance, as you are only as good as the person who knows what they are doing and there is a very big challenge in sharing expertise between academic institutions and businesses, and we need to find ways to second people both ways.
“Industry can help with universities and pay those to do the training to attract those people who are at the front line; for interchange to share expertise and move between academia and business more readily and be more of a common part of both. and with sequential processes, we could increase the reputation [of UK cyber security].”
Blunkett said that there is some awareness in business of what is happening in the real world to take action, but if some resource could be put into this, it would be beneficial to businesses in terms of offering the correct training.
“We talk a lot across nations about assistance and improving treaties, but less on how to deal with international ‘no boundaries’, extradition and laws being incompatible, but talk a lot on what is happening in the world, and we should talk a lot more on skills as it would help a lot,” he said.
Pointing to the recent Regin story, Blunkett said that this raised awareness of issues as we over-estimate what can be done by sophisticated associations like GCHQ, but under-estimate equipping police services.
“My concern has been on equipping of basic policing services, and again sharing of expertise in terms of academia equally applies to law enforcement including policing, where no training has been done,” he said, adding that in prosecution and judiciary there is a “desperate” need for sharing.
