GCHQ the Secret Technologies Cyber Security Strategy

Some of the secret technologies created at the government's eavesdropping centre GCHQ are to be offered to private industry as part of cyber security strategy unveiled by ministers on Friday. Ministers argue GCHQ's main priority will remain national security and the agency has insisted it will not be side-tracked. However, the new cyber strategy makes clear that better co-operation is needed between the public and private sectors to face the dangers posed by espionage and crime on the web.

The plans aim to show how the government is going to spend some of the £650m it set aside for cyber security in last year's strategic defence and security review. Creating a cyber defence operations group at the MoD, which will be overseen by Air Marshal Sir Stuart Peach, head of the new Joint Forces Command.--The cyber strategy is the second since 2009 and is designed to bolster defences against the growing menace of theft, fraud and espionage online. The Cabinet Office insisted that GCHQ would not be opening a commercial arm. The minister for cyber security, Francis Maude, said: "The strategy heralds a new era of unprecedented co-operation between the government and industry on cyber security, working hand in hand to make the UK one of the most secure places in the world to do business."

"We will create a hub with GCHQ in the middle of it," said a Whitehall source. GCHQ will act as the clearing house." In turn, GCHQ is to offer to firms some of the expertise it has developed in-house. The Cheltenham-based agency will get an infusion of hundreds of millions of pounds to fund its larger role in the UK's cyber-defence, Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude said in announcing the The UK Cyber Security Strategy (PDF). Of the £650m in funding, around 65 percent is expected to be spent on capabilities, 20 percent on critical cyber-infrastructure, nine percent on cybercrime specifics, five percent on reserves and one percent on education.

"Around half of the £650m funding will go towards enhancing the UK's core capability, based mainly at GCHQ at Cheltenham, to detect and counter cyberattacks," the strategy document stated. Cybersecurity hub The government plans to launch a pilot for the hub in December, involving companies from five sectors — defence, finance, telecommunications, pharmaceuticals and energy — as well as GCHQ. "The government cannot tackle this challenge alone. This means businesses will have to form "uncomfortable partnerships", Owen Pengelly, deputy director of the Office of Cyber Security and Information Assurance (Ocsia), acknowledged earlier in November.

The Government is to set up a police cyber crime unit as part of a £650m drive to tackle the growing threat of online attacks from criminal gangs, hostile states, "hactivists" and terrorists. The Cyber Crime Unit will be operational by 2013 Mr Maude said and will be part of the National Crime Agency and builds on the Metropolitan Police force's eCrime Unit. Mr Maude added: "We will also ensure that the police use existing powers to ensure that cyber criminals are appropriately sanctioned." As well as law enforcement, a joint cyber unit at GCHQ will develop the UK's military capabilities in cyberspace.