The UK needs to significantly bolster its cyber security skills to fight against cyber threats, according to former security minister Baroness Pauline Neville-Jones.
Neville-Jones, who is now the government's Special Representative to Business on Cyber Security, said that a lack of skills will hinder the UK's future ability to tackle the challenges of cyber crime."[The UK cyber security skills base] is wholly inadequate," Neville-Jones said in a lecture at the Global Strategy Forum in London yesterday.
"[Education minister] Michael Gove has rightly, in my opinion, just swept away the existing ICT course. We need to revert to teaching programming [and to] create a perception of a career in this area. We need to have British graduates in our universities, not just Chinese."
The private sector, academics and professional organisations all have a role to play in constructing the necessary education courses and raising the profile of cyber security careers, Neville-Jones added.She believes that in government, particularly, security is regarded more as a cost than an enabler.
"Part of the problem is that cyber security skills are not recognised. Cyber security ought to be a module that everyone takes at business school," she said.
But making cyber security an issue that businesses should take seriously is also difficult, Neville-Jones has admitted.
Private companies need to have a statement on their cyber security strategy in their financial reports, she said. However, despite the government's efforts to get cyber security onto the agenda of UK boardrooms, many still think it is too technical.
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