Minister for the Cabinet Office, Rt. Hon. Matthew Hancock MP, announced yesterday during his trade mission to Israel, that Britain and Israel would strengthen its ties in cyber security, launching the UK-Israel cyber-physical initiative to better protect critical infrastructure.
The Cabinet Office Minister said: “I can announce that our leading cyber security bodies, CERT-UK and CERT-IL will strengthen their engagement and provide greater situational awareness through sharing incident information, malware analysis, methodologies, policies and best practice”.
Announcing the new initiative, Mr Hancock stated: “We have launched a new academic engagement between the UK and Israel in the emerging area of cyber-physical security – an area vital to the safety and security of our economies and our infrastructure. Israeli experts will engage in joint research with UK academics in cyber-security. We will launch a competition to find the best ideas and people to work together to develop research focussed on what is another new frontier: protecting our cyber physical systems: like protecting industrial control systems, the internet of things and driverless cars”.
Speaking of the staunch existing links between the two countries, he said: “British-Israeli collaboration in technology and innovation has facilitated a multitude of business partnerships in areas such as fintech, cleantech, digital health and more”.
Mr Hancock underlined: “It is my hope and intention that we can build on what we have done in the past by identifying and developing opportunities for collaboration amongst our two nations. For perhaps no two countries know more, in times both historic and present, of the need to fight for our security, to keep our people safe and free. While very real physical battles persist, the new frontier in that fight is the cyber war”.
He praised Israel’s success in technological innovation, emphasising that Britain had a lot to learn from the Start-Up Nation: “It is an amazing and brilliant fact that Israel has the highest density of cyber and digital start-ups per capita in the world. We are very jealous of this fact. So I thought I’d do something about it, and come and learn from this start-up nation; from the Israeli spirit of innovation and mission”.
The Cabinet Office Minister asserted: “We want to boost our trade, encourage even more Israeli investment in the UK and oppose those calling for boycotts”.
The UK’s cyber security sector currently contributes over £17 billion to the economy, and Government announced in November that it will invest £1.9 billion over the next 5 years in cyber security.
