UK Looking For Cyber Warfare Capability Experts

Britain Defense Secretary Philip Hammond said Britain was spending increasing amounts of its defense budget, the fourth largest in the world, on cyber intelligence and surveillance.

Hammond told in the conference the government would recruit hundreds of experts in the coming months from a variety of backgrounds, including civilian computer experts, to join what he called a new Joint Cyber Reserve.

They said to delegates last year our cyber defenses blocked around 400,000 advanced malicious cyber threats against the government's secure internet alone, so the threat is real.

But simply building cyber defenses is not enough: as in other domains of warfare, we also have to deter. Britain will build a dedicated capability to counterattack in cyberspace and if necessary to strike in cyberspace.

He did not go into details on who was attacking Britain's infrastructure, but government sources have said a large number of such assaults have originated in China or Russia.

And also Hammond said on Sundays news paper that clinical "cyber strikes" could disable enemy communications, nuclear and chemical weapons, planes, ships and other hardware, Our commanders can use cyber weapons alongside conventional weapons in future conflicts.

The "reservists" would work alongside existing experts in various government agencies such as the Ministry of Defence and the GCHQ electronic surveillance agency. Hammond did not say how much the recruitment program would cost, but the outlay is expected to run to hundreds of millions of pounds.

In July, a group of lawmakers from Britain said Britain was losing the battle against cyber crime, saying online criminals in 25 countries had chosen the UK as their number one target.

Reference:

http://www.reuters.com