Increasing cyber skills and collaboration between agencies such as CGI are the key to keeping daily life – and the state – secure
This week has seen experts from across the UK converge on Glasgow to look at the future of protecting our security online.
As any of us who regularly use the internet know, staying safe is vital, from the banking app on our mobile phones to threats to our national security through potential cyber attacks.
Cyber Scotland Week, an initiative between the Scottish Government and ScotlandIS, the trade body for digital technologies, was the first of its kind and brought together UK-wide government bodies and companies at events looking at not only cyber resilience and the future of the industry itself, but also the diverse range of careers in the industry.
CGI already has more than 5,000 employees across the UK, with Richard Holmes, Head of Cyber Security at CGI, looking after around 200 on a specialised cyber crime team.
CGI has clients across government agencies, from national level to local authorities as well as defence, policing, healthcare and banking, and many others that require the round-the-clock defences that cyber security brings.
“From our perspective, Cyber Scotland Week is a great example of an initiative by the Scottish Government to raise awareness of cyber more generally. We attended a number of the events and were happy to be part of the ecosystem of organisations taking part.
“To my mind, it complements other events such as the Scottish Cyber Awards, which I was involved in judging last November. This week is another event that allows cyber to have a wider profile among a greater set of stakeholders.”
During Cyber Scotland Week, the National Cyber Security Centre brought the UK’s biggest government cyber security event to the Scottish Event Campus on Wednesday and Thursday. At CYBERUK 2019, there were more than 130 speakers and around 2,500 attendees keen to hear about the future of cyber resilience.
Richard said: “To build this into a wider week of cyber security awareness was a good idea and we were delighted to take part in events where we could not only engage on what we have been doing in the field of cyber, but also look at growing our workforce.”
During this week one of the main strands of CYBERUK 2019 and Cyber Scotland Week has been about growing the diversity of the workforce.
Richard added: “A good example of that was an event which took place on Friday at the Radisson Blu Hotel and hosted by Skills Development Scotland.
“This informative event allowed all those there to hear about what the UK and Scottish governments are doing around the learning and skills strategy for cyber. For us it’s an ongoing mission to show what a broad range of skills and careers cyber incorporates.”
------------------------------------------------
‘As everyone becomes more cyber literate the opportunities to use technology increase’
CGI was among suppliers who provide cyber services such as, strategic planning, security designs, and detection and response to clients at CYBERUK 2019.
Another important event as part of Cyber Scotland Week was Skills Development Scotland’s Cyber Resilience Supplier Information Day in Glasgow, which looked at how cyber suppliers can work together to achieve the broad range of skills required.
“Cyber is there in everything we do now,” says Richard Holmes.
“I feel very privileged in that I can work across all of our sectors, particularly considering the breadth of sectors across which we work at CGI. Increasingly cyber is a conversation that all of our customers want to have.”
As Richard explains, an important part of CGI’s role is taking away that fear of the unknown.
“When we can’t see the threat, or indeed the opportunities, it can certainly be more difficult to get to grips with. Part of our role is to give people confidence in cyber.
“As everyone becomes more cyber aware and literate, then comes the courage to embrace the technologies that we have been presented with, whether that’s in the public sector or the private sector. There are so many great services in existence, as well as just around the corner, and it’s all about the government and organisations addressing cyber appropriately.”
In many ways, as we become more comfortable with the services, they become something that becomes normalised to us.
“As well as making our lives easier, these services will also allow us to do so many things we couldn’t do previously. These are undoubtedly exciting times, particularly to be working in cyber.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article