Under attack from hackers, UK isn’t hiring staff fast enough

Workers cross Westminster Bridge during the morning rush hour in London in Britain, November 28, 2016. REUTERS/Toby Melville

The UK government is struggling to recruit enough cyber experts to protect its data from hackers, a panel of lawmakers has warned. 

In a report published Feb 3, the cross-party Public Accounts Committee urged ministers to address the shortage urgently and pointed out that the government has listed cyberattacks as one of the top four threats to national security since 2010. 

“Government has a vital role to play in cyber security across society but it needs to raise its game,” committee chair Meg Hillier said in the findings. “Its approach to handling personal data breaches has been chaotic and does not inspire confidence.”

The committee found that in 2016 there were 12 different groups in central government responsible for protecting information, with “several lines of accountability and little coherence between them.” 

Many have since been amalgamated into the National Cyber Security Centre, but this body’s remit “is still unclear.” Different government departments also seemed to have different standards for what counts as a data breach. — Bloomberg