The highly anticipated UK cyber security strategy has today been launched, with the public now able to report cyber incidents with new digital services.

Steve Barclay, chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster, said that the UK’s public services will now be strengthened to further protect them from the risk of being “shut down by hostile cyber threats”.

In a speech, the cabinet minister warned that Britain is now the third most targeted country by hostile states.

The new strategy is backed by a £37.8 million investment which will be spent on helping local authorities boost cyber resilience to protect essential services which rely on data, including housing benefit, voter registration, electoral management, school grants, and the provision of social care.

Around 40 per cent of the 777 incidents managed by the National Cyber Security Centre between September 2020 and August 2021 were aimed at the public sector.

“If we want people to continue to access their pensions online, social care support from local government or health services, we need to step up our cyber defences,” said Barclay. “The cyber threat is clear and growing. But government is acting - investing over £2billion in cyber, retiring legacy IT systems and stepping up our skills and coordination.”

The government said the new strategy “will step up the country’s cyber resilience by better sharing data, expertise and capabilities to allow government to ‘Defend As One’”.

The move follows the recent publication of the National Cyber Security Strategy, which called on all parts of society to play their part in “reinforcing the UK’s economic strengths in cyberspace, through more diversity in the workforce, levelling up the cyber sector across all UK regions, expanding offensive and defensive cyber capabilities and prioritising cyber security in the workplace, boardrooms and digital supply chains.”

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