We are using cookies to give you the best experience on our website. You can find out more about which cookies we use in our Privacy Policy. Accept and Close

  • About
    • Digital publishing
    • Partners
  • About events
    • About the Global Government Finance Summit
    • Global Government Finance Summit
    • Global Government Finance Summit participants
    • Global Government Summit
  • About the Global Government Summit
  • Building the right systems for remote working webinar on demand
  • Content Advisory Board
  • Data transparency and public behaviour change webinar on demand
  • Discussion Board
  • Discussion Board Login/Out
  • Discussion Board Registration
  • Events
  • Face the challenge: Singapore’s solution to digital ID verification webinar on demand
  • Find your identity: making progress on digital ID verification webinar slides
  • GDPR – Request personal data
  • Global Government Forum’s Direct Marketing Survey Prize Draw Terms and Conditions
  • Global Government Summit Discussion Board
  • Global Government Summit participants
  • Global Government Tax Summit
  • Government Diversity Survey 2016
  • Health Summit London 2016
  • Home
  • How Detroit has turned bankruptcy into renewal
  • How has the pandemic affected your country’s resilience webinar on demand
  • Innovation for Economic Development
  • Making digital work for finance professionals webinar
  • Manage “The curative power of connectivity: using tech to support public health and economic growth” Webinar
  • Matching Resources to Priorities webinar, 28 February 2018
  • News
  • No Access
  • Poll
  • Previous Global Government Finance Summits
  • Previous Global Government Summits
  • Privacy Policy
  • Products
  • Protecting staff as they protect the public: service delivery in the COVID era webinar on demand
  • Recover and Thrive: Regulating Mobility in a Disrupted World – On Demand
  • Research
  • Senior Executives in State and Local Government
  • Service Integrator Aligning Public Services
  • Sign Up for Email News Notifications
  • Skills and Systems for Remote Working – On Demand Webinar
  • Submit Jobs
  • Supporting civil service decision making: the role of finance – On Demand Webinar and Slides
  • Terms & Conditions
  • Testing the download forms
  • Thank You for Subscribing
  • Thank you for subscribing
  • Tripwire – Developing immunity: IT security in the era of remote working webinar on demand
  • UK Government IT Survey 2016
  • What are the most important factors in influencing UK government decisions to award new outsourcing contracts?
  • Which of the large IT suppliers to the UK government do civil servants rate highest?
  • White Papers
  • Women Leaders Index – Gender Equality Study
  • Women Leaders Index UK Launch
  • Home
  • News
  • Topics
    • AI
    • Digital & Technology
    • Finance
    • Global Trends
    • Growth & Employment
    • Innovation
    • Payments & Financial Services
    • Policy & Governance
    • Public Services
    • Women Leaders
  • Regions
    • Africa
    • Asia Pacific
    • Europe
    • Middle East
    • North America
    • South America
  • Interviews
  • Features
  • Events
    • Digital Summit
    • Finance Summit
    • Global Government Summit
    • Leaders’ Forum
    • Innovation
    • Putting Citizens First
    • About events
    • Events
  • Resources
    • GovApp
    • Research
    • White Papers
    • Women Leaders Index
  • About
    • About us
    • Content Advisory Board
    • Digital publishing
    • Old events
    • Partners
    • Research
Government & civil service news AI Payments & Financial Services
Home   >   Sections   >   Digital & Technology   >   UK Defence Intelligence to establish new cyber warfare unit

UK Defence Intelligence to establish new cyber warfare unit

By Matt Ross on 24/02/2016
  • Tweet
  • Email

The UK is establishing a military unit dedicated to cyber and electromagnetic warfare, the chief of defence intelligence told an audience at the Ministry of Defence yesterday.

Making a rare public appearance, Air Marshal Phil Osborn – the head of the Ministry’s Defence Intelligence arm – explained how his unit is investing some of the additional funds allocated to intelligence in last year’s Comprehensive Spending Review.

The spending review saw the security and intelligence agencies’ budgets rise by 18% in real terms over its three-year term, and promised that “the Single Intelligence Account (SIA) will also invest in a bigger and more capable global network and enhance its capability to fuse intelligence with the armed forces”. The £1.9bn allocated to “cyber capabilities” represents an increase of 76% on spending during the 2010-15 Parliament – and some of this, Osborn explained, will fund “the stand-up of a military joint cyber and electromagnetic group”, run by Defence Intelligence and the Single Intelligence Account.

The group, he said, will “deliver deployable cyber support teams dealing with both offense and defence, helping both operators and planners, commanders and executors.”

Speaking to an invited audience at the Strand Group – a seminars series run by Kings College London’s Policy Institute – Osborn announced that Defence Intelligence is also creating a “24/7 situational awareness capability able to provide global monitoring and analysis across the spectrum.”

This will be costly, he conceded, but “we put such stock on not being surprised that it’s worth the investment.” The world is becoming “more unpredictable, more competitive, more contested, more complex, more high-stakes, and as surprising and as demanding of intelligence as it’s ever been,” he explained, pointing to major global events for which the West had not been fully prepared.

“We probably underplayed the scale and intensity of extremism. We probably underplayed the risk appetite of Russia,” said Osborn. “Most of us probably got the pressures that led to the Arab Spring correct, but we probably didn’t accurately predict the scale or velocity of subsequent events; and we didn’t pick up on the scale or velocity of the instability in Syria and elsewhere… Many of us thought [migration] would be a challenge for much of the world, but we didn’t pick up the confluence of factors that made it as immediate [a challenge] as it is today.”

Considering a range of possible future risks, the Defence Intelligence boss gave some “generic examples of the kinds of things we should be thinking about.”

One “more dangerous, less likely but still credible outcome,” he suggested, was that of “a powerful but declining state whose economy is tanking and has to do something different – something dramatically different – to arrest that decline. And perhaps whose sense of self and history, or risk appetite, or system governance makes that gamble make more sense.”

The future is made still less predictable, Osborn suggested, by the tendency of powerful heads of state to take national decisions on the basis of very personal motivations: “If they’re deeply personal autocracies, how often are clashes between states actually conflicts between egos and the sense of self projected on a nation? You can probably imagine some of those today. The mystery of personality-based grand strategic decision-making will probably endure.”

A former RAF Tornado navigator and squadron commander, Osborn was made chief of defence intelligence a year ago and now leads 4,000 staff working on defence surveillance and reconnaissance, cyber and electromagnetic warfare, and defence counter-intelligence.

For up to date government news and international best practice follow us on Twitter @globegov

cyber securitydefenceDigitalIntelligenceKings College LondonMinistry of DefencesecuritySIASingle Intelligence AccountStrand GrouptechnologyUnited Kingdom

About Matt Ross

Matt is a journalist and editor specialising in public sector management, policymaking and service delivery. He was the editor of Civil Service World 2008-14, serving an audience of senior UK officials; and the features editor of Regeneration & Renewal 2002-08, covering urban regeneration, economic growth and community development. He has also been a motoring and travel journalist, and now combines his role as editorial director of Global Government Forum with communications consultancy, marketing and journalism work for publishers, public sector unions and private sector suppliers to government.

Matt Ross Matt Ross Matt Ross

Related Posts

  • Reach every home: building universal digital services
    Reach every home: building universal digital services
  • UK needs an AI strategy, says advisory committee
    UK needs an AI strategy, says advisory committee
  • UK Cabinet Office announces new strategic digital unit
    UK Cabinet Office announces new strategic digital unit
  • Facial recognition AI can identify mask-wearers, US research finds
    Facial recognition AI can identify mask-wearers, US research finds

Leave a Reply

Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Latest News

  • Reach every home: building universal digital services

    Governments need strong digital infrastructure to provide citizens with online...

    • Posted January 18, 2021
    • 0
  • NHS – A Crucial Time for Portfolio, Programme and Project Management

    This case study looks at how the NHS assessed its...

    • Posted January 18, 2021
    • 0
  • Spare room superheroes: how finance departments met the pandemic threat

    When COVID-19 struck, finance departments around the world sent their...

    • Posted January 15, 2021
    • 0
  • UK needs an AI strategy, says advisory committee

    The UK government needs an artificial intelligence (AI) strategy so...

    • Posted January 14, 2021
    • 0
  • Taxing times: SMEs cautious about open banking

    The UK government is exploring how technology can streamline tax...

    • Posted January 14, 2021
    • 0
  • UK Cabinet Office announces new strategic digital unit

    The UK’s Cabinet Office is overhauling the leadership of digital,...

    • Posted January 13, 2021
    • 0
  • UK civil servants spurned leadership training, says Francis Maude

    UK civil service leaders resisted the government’s attempts to provide...

    • Posted January 12, 2021
    • 0

Partner content

Why is workforce analytics the key to driving public sector transformation?
To build the society we want, we need our public servants to lead the way. The question is: how can government departments create the perfect blend of skills and experience […]
How tech helps government departments improve the efficiency of fraud investigations
Fraud, theft and misuse of government services costs the UK public sector more than £40 billion per year. But technology can help officials to analyse intelligence, pinpoint patterns of behaviour, […]
Face the challenge: Singapore’s solution to digital ID verification
Facial verification technology is quietly gaining ground for digital identity management and authentication. Device-based face verification, such Apple FaceID or Google Face Unlock, are being used by millions of consumers […]
D&B Investigate™: Unleash Data and Collaboration
Boost collaboration so cases are easier to close See how D&B Investigate helps agents research, analyze, and connect on companies of interest Today’s investigators often face limited resources, multiple demands, […]

Related events

Rebuild, reset, recover: what role for digital technology?
This Global Government Forum/Global Government Fintech webinar, supported by our knowledge partner Mastercard, will convene representatives of governments to discuss how increasingly digital ways of working can help societies and economies to rebuild, reset and recover.
Shape your future: creating and delivering impactful public sector strategy
At this webinar, public sector specialists from PA Consulting and senior strategists from different public sector organisations will discuss how strategies can be effectively developed and implemented. They will explore challenges involved in understanding their current and future threats and opportunities; defining credible long-term visions and objectives; identifying the capabilities required to deliver those objectives; and planning programmes of work to develop them.
Leading Digital Transformation
Usual change management theories do not really work when it comes to digital transformation because you need it to come from the grassroots up rather than top-down. Public sector leaders […]
Safety net: how governments are working to protect citizens online
In recent years, governments and businesses have acted to tackle online crimes such as hacking and fraud. Now many are focusing on ways to balance the right to free speech with the need to prevent harm online. Bringing together civil servants and industry leaders from around the world, this webinar will discuss how to create policy, regulatory, legislative and technical frameworks to protect people from harm without stifling economic growth, open debate or public access to digital services.

Events

2020 NOVEMBER 16-17

Innovation 2020

2020 DECEMBER 3-4

Digital Summit 2020

2021 JANUARY 21-22

Global Government Summit 2021

Follow us

  • Home
  • About
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms & Conditions

© 2020 GlobalGovernmentForum.com

loading Cancel
Post was not sent - check your email addresses!
Email check failed, please try again
Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email.