Stepping up security

The UK’s

(KTN) has launched an international roadmap aimed at safeguarding the security of global information systems.

The group’s ‘Building in Information Security, Privacy and Assurance’ plan makes a number of recommendations to achieve a global security network that will ensure software and systems have security and privacy defined at project initiation and 'implemented as a matter of course'.

Measures include outlining a clear business case, improving the training of IT undergraduates and increasing end-user input.

Nigel Jones, director of the KTN, said: ‘We’re still producing software and systems that unintentionally have holes and security flaws in them. What we need to do is not just educate people about security, but also put more effort into making sure the systems we deliver are secure from the start.

‘We discussed a number of areas of development that included shaping cases that make business sense and getting the government to put requirements on procurement of software to show that they’d taken security and privacy into account at an early stage.’