30 May 2025, 07:42

By Shaun Cooney

On Monday, the government will use its Strategic Defence Review to fully announce £1billion in funding for cyberwarfare and tackling cyber-threats.

The new Cyber and Electromagnetic Command will be ‘the nerve centre of the UK that helps defend against these attacks’, the Defence Secretary John Healey said, adding that ‘the keyboard has become a weapon of war’

This acknowledgement is enormously encouraging. It’s time for governments globally to get real about where the future wars will be fought: with increasing signs that ‘no man’s land’ will be in cyberspace.

Therefore, a move that consolidates existing defensive and offensive capabilities to make responses more joined-up and efficient is a smart one.

Crucially, it acknowledges that there needs to be as much focus on attack as there is on defence, in the same way that physical warfare relies on attacking as well as protecting our borders.

However, as events in recent weeks have shown, despite massive amounts of time and money being invested in cybersecurity, the country has major vulnerabilities that need to be tackled alongside this strategy.

The Strategic Defence Review follows weeks of high-profile cyber-attacks that have targeted both the public and private sector.

First, there were the........

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