UK government unveils £1.9bn cybersecurity strategy

The UK government is to set up a cybersecurity research institute as part of its second national cybersecurity strategy, to be funded with £1.9 billion.

The National Cyber Security Strategy 2016-2021, released by the Treasury on 1 November, explains how the government plans to strengthen its own cyberdefences as well as making sure businesses take steps to protect infrastructure considered to be critical for the country, for example in energy and transport. 

The five-year plan will receive more than twice the amount spent on the first strategy (£860 million), which ran from 2011 to 2016. According to the chancellor Philip Hammond, cybersecurity will also be a “core part” of the upcoming industrial strategy. The government’s intervention, moreover, is needed because industry has not yet done enough to drive improvements in cybersecurity.