policy – PwnDefend

Supporting the Cyber Leadership Challenge

Earlier this year I had the honour of supporting the Cyber Leadership Challenge as a judge at the BT Tower! I’ve been a judge at Cyber 912 previously but I’ve always been doing that virtually, so it was great to be able to goto the event not via a webcam! The Cyber Leadership challenge is a national cyber emergency competition for UK university students. The students work in teams through an evolving national major cyber incident, so they will likely be thinking through areas many don’t give two seconds thought to, such as:

Strategy

Australia National Cyber Strategy Consultation

This morning before I got on with some more dull affairs of business, I saw the following:

2023-2030 Australian Cyber Security Strategy Discussion Paper

How we (humanity) and people (including governments etc.) respond to the changing digital landscape and cyber threats that affect society and humanity as a whole is really important. It’s great to see the Australian government using an advisory board and panel structure as they look to review/renew their national cyber security strategy. I’m posting this to raise awareness as I think these things are ever so important that people in the community, industry, academia etc. give their inputs, help and support to the people charged with the incredibly complex task of developing and implementing cyber strategies at country scale! A task not so simple, hence they are calling for inputs as part of a general consultation request from people and organizations.

Leadership

Current State Cyber Challenges and why communication is important

Currently I’d list some of the major challenges we face as a civilisation as the following (clearly not exhaustive etc.)

The general population largely don’t understand cyber
Lots of people think there is nothing they can really do
People have shockingly bad personal cyber security
A large number of organisations have shockingly poor cyber security postures
People’s passwords are often ridiculously weak
People re-use passwords all the time
People seem to believe we have “magic nation state cyber shields”
Organisation’s largely do not invest adequately in cyber security

Defence

The Director of GCHQ speaks at CyberUK 2022

Sir Jeremy Fleming was speaking at CyberUK, the UK’s flagship cyber security conference this week.

The full presentation is here but I’ve picked out some key highlights.

“Of course, we can count ourselves lucky compared to those caught up in wars, but we are also seeing a heightened cyber risk. Cyber criminals are consistently evolving their tactics; the lines are blurring with hostile state activity and ransomware remains a real threat.”

“Cyber clearly matters to everyone.”

“At the global level, the UK has developed as a cyber power. Alongside the more traditional forms of diplomacy and statecraft, cyber now plays a vital role in our national security and prosperity.”