Something about this just does not strike me as a joined-up strategy. Also my first job, as a university systems programmer, with sparse qualifications, paid about £16,000. That was in 1988.
“Cyber Specials” – HomeOffice (current)
The Home Office, which received £63m under the programme, will lead the work in the Strategy on tackling cyber crime through:
- expanding the use of ‘cyber specials’ (volunteer police officers with specialist cyber skills) to help tackle cyber crime
- creating a new cyber crime unit within the National Crime Agency by 2013 to lead on national-level cyber crime
- encouraging the police and the courts to make better use of existing cyber sanctions for cyber offences; and
- making it easier for individuals and businesses to report financially motivated cyber crime
New GCHQ Territorial (Spook) Army (Oct 2012)
The UK’s Territorial Army is a paid force of part-time volunteers that make up around 25% of the army’s manpower. It is considered an essential part of the UK’s defense force. Now GCHQ is thinking of using the same principle to bolster the UK’s cyber defense.
“Hundreds of computer experts will work one or two days a week at the agency’s Cheltenham headquarters and they have already been dubbed ‘iPlods’, under plans being discussed by ministers,” reports the Daily Telegraph.
Cyber crime ‘iPlods’ wanted part time at GCHQ (Oct 2012)
Ministers are engaged in talks that could see British intelligence agency GCHQ recruit part time cyber crime experts, it has been reported.
The possibility comes after warnings from the agency’s director Iain Lobban that GCHQ had been struggling to hold on to the “internet whizzes” needed for cyber operations, people who were being drawn away to higher salaries in the private sector.
According to The Daily Telegraph the idea of part time “iPlods”, who would work at the agency for one or two days per week, was described as “purely speculative” by a GCHQ spokesman.
The agency was nevertheless “constantly examining new ways to harness and attract the talents of the cyber security specialists we need”.
‘GCHQ can’t match Google pay for internet whizzes’ (OLD: Nov 2011)
Government intelligence agency GCHQ has been unable to retain the required experts it needs to tackle growing threats from cyberspace, and the government must investigate ways around pay constraints in order to improve the situation, a group of MPs and Lords have warned.
Chaired by former Defence Secretary Sir Malcolm Rifkind, the Intelligence and Security Committee was told by [Iain Lobban] the director of GCHQ that he needed “some real internet whizzes in order to do cyber”.
But the director expressed concerns about his ability to attract and retain such individuals, in light of the competitive salary packages available in the private sector.
“They will be working for Microsoft or Google or Amazon or whoever. And I can’t compete with their salaries; I can offer them a fantastic mission, but I can’t compete with their salaries,” he said.
Adding that GCHQ was losing cyber experts month-on-month to pay packages three times higher than the intelligence agency could offer, the director said his “internet whizzes [were] not going to stay”, unless he could do a better job.
Reflecting, the committee said they were “concerned about GCHQ’s inability to retain a suitable cadre of internet specialists to respond to the threat”.
It urged GCHQ to investigate what could be done within current pay constraints to improve the situation.
And the committee said that the Cabinet Office, as the lead government department for cyber security, should look into providing bonuses for specialist skills, similarly to a system currently used in the US.
Britain opens wallet to close IT skills gap (Oct 2012)
Meanwhile, foreign secretary William Hague revealed on Thursday that the government is setting up two-year higher apprenticeships to boost tech skills in the secret services. The 70 new apprenticeships in IT, software, internet and telecommunications come with a salary of £17,066 and will be given to recruits for GCHQ, MI5 and MI6.
Speaking at the World War II code-breaking centre Bletchley Park, Hague said the ‘Apprentices with Intelligence’ will identify and develop talent in school and university students. Applicants should have three good A-levels, with at least two in STEM subjects.
They will “actively contribute to the mission of the Intelligence Services to tackle cyber-threats, terrorism, counter espionage and organised crime”, GCHQ said in a statement.
GCHQ to trawl Facebook and Twitter for intelligence (Oct 2012)
Representatives from the National Technical Assistance Centre, a sub-unit of GCHQ, have attended recent meetings with telecom firms – organised by industry body the European Telecommunications Standards Institute – where they have discussed how to upgrade surveillance capabilities to keep pace with new technologies. The government is currently conducting pre-legislative scrutiny of its communications data bill, dubbed the “snoopers’ charter” by critics, which is intended to vastly enhance how the authorities are able to monitor internet communications.
GCHQ, which employs more than 5,000 people, has had difficulty finding skilled new recruits as it has struggled to compete with salaries offered in the private sector. The parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee reported (PDF) in July that GCHQ was “losing critical staff with high-end cyber technology skills at up to three times the rate of the corporate average.” In a bid to attract fresh talent, the agency is taking a more proactive public role. It launched a cybersecurity competition in September, and last week showcased the work of its “young apprentices” at Manchester Science Festival, demonstrating code-cracking cyber games to mark the centenary of second world war codebreaker Alan Turing.
Cyber Security Challenge UK Finalists Visit GCHQ (Sep 2012)
FINALISTS from this year’s Cyber Security Challenge UK competition recently visited GCHQ in Cheltenham to find out more about cyber security as part of their prize.
The aim of the competition is to test both the cyber security skills of contestants through a number of online games and challenges created by commercial companies, and to encourage talented people into the cyber security profession.
The visit of this year’s finalists to GCHQ started with them signing the Official Secrets Act […]
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