Could You Be A UK Cyber-Warrior?
A crack team of 50 'brilliant brains' is to be recruited by the UK Government to defend the country against hacking attacks.
As part of the new National Cyber Security Programme, UK ministers want people seeking a career change to try-out for the new team.
The idea is to recruit people who do not currently work in the computer industry but who have 'high aptitude' brains with an untapped natural talent.
It is similar to the use of the Telegraph cryptic crossword in 1942 to find identify codebreakers for Bletchley Park.
The scheme is part of the £1.9billion cyber defence project unveiled by UK Chancellor Philip Hammond. As a pilot scheme, the free training course in London will target people such as soldiers, doctors and nurses who are interested in a new direction. If selected, the individuals will be put through exercises including dealing with a nationwide cyber-attack, and studying the mindset of hackers.
Matt Hancock, the minister for digital and culture, told The Times: 'This new academy will give students the skills the nation needs to fight cyberattacks and help us achieve our ambition of making the UK the safest place to live and do business online.'
Launching the strategy at an event in east London recently, Mr Hammond said investment in 'offensive' capabilities would help deter other countries from targeting the UK.
'If we do not have the ability to respond in cyberspace to an attack which takes down our power network, leaving us in darkness or hits our air traffic control system grounding our planes, we would be left with the impossible choice of turning the other cheek, ignoring the devastating consequences, or resorting to a military response,' Mr Hammond said as he described the National Cyber Security Strategy in London.
'That is a choice we do not want to face and a choice we do not want to leave as a legacy to our successors.' Mr Hammond said that as a former foreign secretary, responsible for GCHQ, he had seen the 'full extent' of the threats against the UK.
They included 'threats to our data, to our IP (intellectual property), to our military secrets, to our financial information and perhaps most of all to our infrastructure itself'. 'All of those areas are targets for our adversaries,' he warned. In a sign of the scale of the threat, it has emerged that one scam saw up to 50,000 Britons a day sent a fake tax refund.
The bogus communication, which asked for personal details in order to reclaim money, peaked in September and took six weeks to close down.
