New British Government Will Legislate On Cyber Security

Uploaded on 2024-07-22 in TECHNOLOGY--Resilience, GOVERNMENT-National, FREE TO VIEW, BUSINESS-Services-Law

King Charles speech at the opening of the new Parliament announced that the recently elected Labour government will legislated to strengthen the Britain’s national cyber security and resilience. The intention is to introduce new legislation is designed to protect critical infrastructure and the digital services that businesses rely on after highly damaging cyber-attacks.

“…we will harness the power of Artificial Intelligence as we look to strengthen safety frameworks”, King Charles said.

The proposed Cyber Security and Resilience Bill will expand the remit of existing regulation to cover a broader range of digital services and supply chains, put regulators in a better position to ensure best practices are implemented, and mandate increased reporting so that better data on cyberattacks, and their impact, is available.

This comes following a series of attacks against numerous public bodies, including major attacks targeting the National Health Service (NHS) and the Ministry of Defence (MoD).

Darren Anstee, Chief Technology Officer for Security at NetScout commented on the new legislation' intended best practices for organisations to implement to improve their cyber resilience. “The existing regulations in the UK, introduced in 2018, have helped to ensure that critical national infrastructure and the services it delivers are defended from cyberattacks...

"As we’ve seen recently though, attackers are targeting these services indirectly by going after elements of their supply chain...

".. broadening the scope of regulation, and giving the regulators more powers to ensure best practices are followed, can only be a good thing. Equally important is the ability to mandate increased incident reporting. A broader, deeper and more timely view into the nature of the incidents that organisations experience can help to both refine best practices and ensure that companies can move quickly to prevent attackers repeating their success.

“Bad actors share tools and techniques, organisations delivering critical services, and those involved in their supply chains, should follow suit.. What’s key in delivering better reporting capability, from a technology perspective, is that organisations have consistent visibility across their increasingly diverse infrastructures, without blind spots at internal or external technology borders.

Dominic Trott, director of strategy & alliances at Orange Cyberdefense, welcomed the announcement, as the proposed bill comes at a crucial time due to a significant increase in cyber attacks that wreak havoc on the UK’s critical infrastructure. “Any steps to further strengthen our defences and ensure that more essential digital services than ever before are protected must be welcomed. Over the past year we have seen a series of attacks on organisations providing critical services to the UK,” he explained.

“In the healthcare sector, for example, the pressures that hospitals have faced have been heightened by the growing threat of cyber criminals who have brazenly targeted the critical systems of the most vulnerable.” Trott commented.

Gov.UK | Gov.UK | NetScout | ITPro | inews

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