Engineering needs cyber security specialists to beat the threat

The engineering and manufacturing sectors are facing a growing demand for cyber security specialists to combat attacks on industry

Awareness and concern over security against cyber threats is growing. It’s about much more than the risk of personal data being hacked into.

A hostile cyber attack is classed by the UK’s National Security Risk Assessment as a Tier 1 risk, putting it in the most serious category alongside international terrorism, an international military crisis and a major accident or natural hazard. The National Cyber Security Centre was set up in 2016 (as a branch of GCHQ), and later the same year the government confirmed a cyberstrategy budget of £1.9bn over five years.

And although there have been high-profile examples of cyber security breaches, including the ‘Wannacry’ ransomware attack on the NHS last year, the centre’s head Ciaran Martin recently said that the UK had been fortunate so far to avoid a so-called ‘category 1’ attack – an assault that could cripple critical infrastructure such as water or electricity supplies or financial services. He warned that it was a matter of “when, not if” such an attack occurred.