It was announced this week that the Government have used some of the £860million invested into cyber security defences to launch the UK’s national Computer Emergency Response Team, otherwise known as CERT-UK.
The body has been established to deal with cyber security incidents of national significance and will feature a team of 55 people. The facility has been put in place to deal with major issues affecting the UK’s critical IT infrastructure, but will issue alerts and signpost people and businesses to help reduce the impact of online attacks.
At the launch of CERT-UK earlier in the week reference was paid to the size of the issue regarding the cyber threat. Francis Maude, Cabinet Office Minister said:
“The attacks can cost on average between £450,000 and £850,000” and mentioned that “93% of large corporations had had "a breach" over the past financial year.”, figures taken from the 2013 Information Security Breaches report by Price Waterhouse Cooper.
Maude also referenced a London-based company had suffered a security breach which cost it "£800m worth of revenue".
