UK Cybersecurity Director Outlines Agencys Failures in Ongoing Cyberwar
April 8, 2016
The article titled GCHQ: Spy Chief Admits UK Agency Losing Cyberwar Despite £860M Funding Boost on International Business Times examines the surprisingly frank confession made by Alex Dewdney, a director at the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ). He stated that in spite of the £860M funneled into cybersecurity over the past five years, the UK is unequivocally losing the fight. The article details,
“To fight the growing threat from cybercriminals chancellor George Osborne recently confirmed that, in the next funding round, spending will rocket to more than £3.2bn. To highlight the scale of the problem now faced by GCHQ, Osborne claimed the agency was now actively monitoring “cyber threats from high-end adversaries” against 450 companies across the UK aerospace, defence, energy, water, finance, transport and telecoms sectors.”
The article makes it clear that search and other tools are not getting the job done. But a major part of the problem is resource allocation and petty bureaucratic behavior. The money being poured into cybersecurity is not going towards updating the “legacy” computer systems still in place within GCHQ, although those outdated systems represent major vulnerabilities. Dewdney argues that without basic steps like migrating to an improved, current software, the agency has no hope of successfully mitigating the security risks.
Chelsea Kerwin, April 8, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
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