Business secretary Vince Cable yesterday announced a £4 million fund designed to encourage small and mid-sized firms to come up with new ideas on how to tackle cyber crime.
Speaking at the inaugural US-UK Global Cyber Security Innovation Summit in London, Cable said the competition would be overseen by the government’s “innovation agency” the Technology Strategy Board in 2015, with the money doled out to those firms with the best ideas.
“The growth of the cyber security sector in the UK is a great success story, worth over £6 billion and employing around 40,000 people. Building a strong and resilient cyberspace in the UK is central to ensuring that our companies can make the most of business opportunities online, whilst avoiding potentially costly threats to the information they hold and the services they provide,” said Cable in a prepared statement.
“Maintaining innovation and growth requires continued investment. Committing a further £4 million will help businesses of all sizes turn their ideas to counter cyber threats into reality. Partnering with industry experts will also increase the opportunities for the UK’s small cyber companies to work together and grow their businesses.”
Also at the event, the business secretary announced the appointment of Andy Williams of trade association techUK as the new cyber security small business champion.
Williams’ job will be to take stock of the current industry and create a national growth project to encourage small businesses in cyber security to work closer together, the government said.
He’ll also look to showcase their talents on the international stage and build an online portal to share information about national initiatives with the cyber security business community.
“Given the rapidly evolving global cyber threat landscape, the emergence of highly innovative and agile new companies with specialist cyber capability will be vital to ensuring the future safety and prosperity of the UK,” Williams said in a statement.
“The extra funding that BIS is providing to support cyber start-ups and small business will be key to ensuring the UK’s position as a global leader in cyber security.”
In a third initiative, Emma Philpott, MD of tech “catalyst” Key IQ, will be tasked with running a new project designed to create regional clusters of cyber security SMEs working with each other.
Just this week the National Audit Office reported that, although the government’s National Cyber Security Programme was progressing well, it was still failing to have an impact on SMEs.
Vinod Bange, partner at international law firm Taylor Wessing, welcomed the government’s latest initiatives as a “vital step” in ensuring the UK is “cyber breach ready.”
“The magnitude of the cyber breach risk facing companies today and tomorrow needs a coordinated response to create a genuine ecosystem capable of supporting SMEs through to large corporates,” he added.
“Any perceived gap in cyber breach readiness at SME level will inevitably have consequences up stream and create a weakness for all companies. Parity of access to cyber breach skills cannot be taken for granted.”