Judy Baker, director of Cyber Security Challenge

It seems with each passing month to another big name is added to the growing number of organisations that have been subject to major attacks.

Last month, it was revealed that hackers gained ‘full functional control’ to mission-critical systems at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab, according to inspector-general Paul Martin in a report to Congress.

That followed BAE Systems admitting that computers used by engineers working on the F-35 fighter jet programme had previously been hacked, potentially compromising design and systems data.

It should come as no surprise then that engineering companies are vulnerable, both in terms of their intellectual property and their physical infrastructure (as the Stuxnet code that crippled Iran’s nuclear centrifuges in 2010 attested).

The question is what to do about it. For a sector that is notoriously technical and opaque, the solution is quaintly organic: people. Lone hackers have proved they can get into systems with little in the way of resources. The industry must therefore make sure it recruits these people before they are tempted to use their skills in altogether more sinister outlets.