The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, Pat McFadden, delivered a welcome signal this week that cyber is not just about vulnerability and risk, but growth. Speaking at CyberUK, he also used the opportunity to announce that Government will publish a new National Cyber Strategy later this year. His speech reinforced the Government’s message that cyber security is not only a technical and defensive necessity, but a national growth engine.
As a leading provider of cyber, intelligence and security capabilities, we’ve helped organisations around the globe lead the cyber conversation from the server room to the boardroom. It has long been clear to us that cyber security is a pillar of modern industrial strategy. Cyber is not a problem that has been solved – it’s an enabler of the growth and ambitions of our present and future.
But scale needs structure. Governance matters and the Government’s recognition of cyber reaffirms a fundamental truth: cyber isn’t simply an IT issue – it’s a leadership responsibility. New funding for emerging technologies, regional investment, and the forthcoming Cyber Security and Resilience Bill are aligning policy with reality – where cyberspace is the intersection of geopolitical influence and commercial advantage.
The Government’s announcement highlights the UK’s opportunity to build sovereign capability, develop high-value jobs at home, and embed digital resilience across the global digital economy.
As the Government continues to review and develop the National Cyber Strategy, our key takeaways of the strategic challenges are:
- Improving adoption
Despite the investment and the focus of previous strategies, adoption of cyber security (particularly in critical national infrastructure and extended supply chains) continues to be a challenge. Now would be a good time to step back and examine why the basic problems remain so prevalent, particularly as complexity continues to evolve with enterprise risks extending through product inter-dependencies and global supply chains.
A key issue to address here is the balance of the responsibility and cost of cyber security between the public and private sectors. Developing a consensus and fair division of the costs will be key to improving future adoption.
- Cross-silo resilience and security
The increasing convergence of technologies is bringing together the physical and digital worlds. A consequence of this trend is that we are seeing the impacts of cyber-attacks increasingly in the physical world and that attacks are being combined with real world sabotage – fraud and cybercrime are no longer separate problems. In reflection of this converged threat, we can no longer treat resilience as a siloed activity and need to plan for incidents that cross these boundaries.
- Enabling growth
Growing the economy is a key mission for this Government and cyber security has a key role to play in this. Cyber security is a cost-effective way of saving public finances from the huge cost of security incidents and crime, while enhanced fraud detection unlocks millions for the public purse.
While more difficult to quantify, the biggest prize will be in building confidence in the digital economy and emerging technologies – you can’t have prosperity without confidence in the security of transactions. Meanwhile the drive to benefit from the growth of assured AI innovation depends on having technologies, platforms and decision-making processes that we can trust.
- International action
Cyber security is a shared challenge that requires shared solutions, being inherently trans-national. Both security and growth objectives therefore require UK Government and industry to engage with international partners. We were pleased to see a continued emphasis on the international strand of this strategy in this week’s announcement.
BAE Systems has been heavily involved in implementing the international pillar of the previous UK Cyber Security Strategy, leading significant parts of the UK’s Indo-Pacific Cyber Programme and Ukraine Cyber Programme, and working with UK and international industry and Government partners to tackle the threats that face all nations.
Ultimately, the serious incidents we have seen over the past year have continued to underline the criticality of the cyber domain. As Pat McFadden said, “Cybersecurity is not a luxury – it’s an absolute necessity. Whether it is a system failure or a deliberate attack, no organisation can afford to treat cyber security as an afterthought.”
The Government’s commitment to driving economic growth means we must treat cyber resilience not as a back-office function, but as critical national infrastructure. We must not wait for the next breach before deploying capability. The time to prioritise cyber as a means of national resilience and growth is now.
Learn more about the Strategic Challenges in Cyberspace
The Digital Thread
Subscribe to our Digital Thread newsletter to receive first-hand insights in your inbox from our data specialists, plus commentary from our defence technology teams, alongside a host of guest content from digital game-changers in space, the armed forces, government departments and more.