Hello all, another week another roundup! Welcome back to the Positive Security News where it's not all doom and gloom in the cyber security industry!
1. Ukraine: EU Deploys cyber rapid-response team
Now, this is a bittersweet moment. Given the current climate in Ukraine, it was nice to hear it was receiving reinforcements in its cyber defence from a “newly formed team” called the Cyber Rapid-Response Team (CRRT) consisting of roughly 10 experts coming from Lithuania, Croatia, Poland, Estonia, Romania, and the Netherlands. All are committed to helping defend Ukraine from Cyberattacks - remotely and on-site in the country.
It’s worth noting that Russia is known for its hybrid use of warfare, combining traditional military activity with cyber-attacks making the EU’s CRRT a rather valuable development in the deterrence of cyber warfare.
Source: BBC Technology
2. Australia makes amendments to its cyber-related legislations.
A new bill proposed in the upside-down land of Australia (assuming you’re the right way up) shines a light on the much needed harsher punishment for hackers wherein they can receive a maximum jail term of up to 25 years for “targeting critical infrastructure assets”.
The new law also provides federal police “clear legal authority” to sanction offshore gangs, with the additional ability to seize cryptocurrencies and “other digital assets” throughout the investigation process. This could prove to be rather damaging to pesky cyber criminals as it’s their go-to currency for transactions and payments within the cybercriminal world, due to its anonymity and decentralised nature.
On the flip side, businesses with a turnover of $10 million or more annually will now have to adhere to a mandatory “ransomware incident reporting regime”. Providing the much-needed standardised practice to combat unreported incidents and breaches - not so fun fact, did you know there’s a major lack of transparency with businesses not informing customers when their data was compromised.
Time to move to Australia!
P.S There are a few more ins-and-outs that we haven't completely highlighted to keep this short and sweet so be sure to check out the source for more information!
Source: IT News
3. Major growth within UK's cyber security sector.
Finishing up with some real nice statistics. The UK has seen record levels of development within the Cyber Security sector. Employment across this industry rose by 13%, generating more than 6,000 new jobs in 2021 alone, providing a vast amount of opportunities throughout the UK bringing up the ever-growing total to 52,700 - nearly enough to fill Anfield football stadium!
In spite of our small numbers, over 1,800 cyber security firms generated a total of £10.1 billion in revenue, an increase of 14% from last year and provided the UK economy with £5.3 billion - increasing, again, from last year's figure of £4 billion and showcasing the “largest increase since the report began in 2018.“
And finally here are some quotes from Digital Secretary Nadine Dorries providing us all with the always welcomed appreciation of our ever-so developing industry!
“Cyber security firms are major contributors to the UK’s incredible tech success story.”
“Hundreds of British firms from Edinburgh to Bristol are developing and selling cutting-edge cyber tools around the world that make it safer for people to live and work online.”
“We are investing in skills training and business initiatives to help the UK go from strength to strength as a global cyber power and open up the sector to people from all walks of life.”
Source: GOV.UK
And so that does it for this week's Positive Security News, be sure to stick around for next week's edition! Until then!