Interviews

Cyber attack project

by Mark Rowe

The company EADS and a Cardiff-based SME announce a new research project to identify the world’s most volatile cyber attack ‘hotspots’. EADS Foundation Wales are providing a £50,000 grant.

Westgate Cyber Security, which advises the private and public sector on information security and provides awareness training, hopes the six-month project could lay the groundwork for a world index of countries most at risk from cyber crime.

Such an index could prove valuable to companies specialising in security to protect IT networks, as market-testing and research.

EADS Foundation Wales is a not-for-profit company set up in 2011 by the Welsh Government, EADS, an aerospace, defence and space sector firm, and Cardiff University.

SMEs and higher education bodies apply to the Foundation for funding and grants for research.

Westgate Director, David Jones, said: “Hardly a week goes by without some sort of high profile cyber attack on an information network. We have examples of hackers in other countries and sovereign states operating on an industrial scale. But there is a far greater risk of data loss from a broad spectrum of companies and organisations which can result in very serious consequences for them. We hope to find some way of measuring cyber security across the world, identifying countries most at risk and trying to quantify it, much along the lines of the Quality of Life Index. We would like to be able to say which countries have a higher cyber security risk than others.”

Mr Jones added: “The UK is second only to the United States in the ‘at risk’ stakes. We are the most developed country in the world for Internet take up and usage, so it follows that we are therefore one of the countries most likely to be targeted by cyber criminals.”

About EADS Foundation Wales

EADS Foundation Wales is a not-for-profit company limited by guarantee between EADS, Welsh Government and Cardiff University. It was formally launched in June 2011.

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