UK Government Awards GBP10m Fund to Develop Cybersecurity Tech Solutions
The UK government is investing GBP10m over the next four years to boost the development of new cybersecurity technology solutions, digital secretary Oliver Dowden has announced today at London Tech Week Connect. Nine grant winners will share the fund from the government’s Digital Security by Design program, launched last year, which aims to improve the resilience of UK organizations to cyber-attacks.
The winners will use the money to build on their innovative solutions and create enhanced software and applications to contain any hacking attempts.
The selected solutions tackle a range of cyber-threats. The University of Southampton will get a portion of the fund for its ‘HD-Sec’ solution, which seeks to speed up the process of and reduce errors and security vulnerabilities in software design that could have been exploited by hackers.
Another is ‘AppControl’ from the University of Glasgow, which will use the money to leverage its state-of-the-art microprocessors, with the aim to ensure vital systems that could be used in cars, medical robots or nuclear power plants remain digitally secure.
Each team will be expected to demonstrate the economic and societal benefits of their new secure technology by creating a working example of their solution.
Dowden said: “We have a world-class cybersecurity sector and together we are working hard to make sure the UK is the safest place to work, connect and live online. With government support, these projects will build cutting-edge, secure technologies that will give people and businesses further confidence in our digital services and help weaken the threat of cyber-attackers.”
The initiative forms part of the UK government’s commitment to increase investment in R&D by 2.4% of GDP by 2027. Yesterday, applications were opened for the world’s first artificial intelligence (AI) and data science conversion courses in the UK, which will begin in autumn 2020.
Cyber-attacks are an increasing threat to organizations in the UK. According to the government’s Cyber Security Breaches Survey 2020, published in March, 46% of businesses and 26% of charities have experienced cybersecurity breaches or attacks in the last 12 months.
This post UK Government Awards GBP10m Fund to Develop Cybersecurity Tech Solutions originally appeared on InfoSecurity Magazine.
