Fund to Train Cybersecurity Experts

University Fund to Train Cybersecurity Experts
A £7.5m university fund has been allocated to train cybersecurity experts in the UK.

High-level cybersecurity experts are to be trained at two university research centres, with £7.5m in government and research council funding. Royal Holloway, University of London and Oxford University will develop specialisms in resisting cyber-attacks. This will support the UK’s national cybersecurity programme.

“We must do everything we can to tackle this threat,” said Universities and Science Minister David Willetts.

From this autumn, two university centres will be set up to train postgraduate students in the increasingly sophisticated battle between hackers, on the one hand, and businesses and governments.

They will be funded by £5m from the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and £2.5m from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council. This is in addition to 30 GCHQ-sponsored PhD places, also supported by the national cybersecurity programme.

The government’s National Security Strategy classifies the cyber-attack threat as being on the same Tier One level as terrorism, and warns of risks from rogue states as well as criminals. According to the government, its own internet gateway faces an average of 33,000 “malicious emails” a month, which can contain links to “sophisticated malware”.