UK to improve cybersecurity with outsourced IT providers
The United Kingdom (UK) will be bringing in outsourced information technology (IT) providers to strengthen its cybersecurity laws and improve the protection of its essential services like water, energy, and transport.
According to UK Minister of State at the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sports (DCMS) Julia Lopez, this move is important so that the services that the country relies on for healthcare, water, energy, and computing would not be brought to a standstill by “criminals and hostile states.”
Citing cyber attacks like the ‘CloudHopper’ incident last 2019, in which hackers targeted big tech companies, the agency added that the rules have to be updated to include companies that provide security monitoring and digital billing.
Moreover, the country’s 2018 cybersecurity regulations would also be updated to make up for these changes.
DCMS said that the regulatory changes would be made as soon as parliamentary time allowed and would apply to “critical service providers, like energy companies and the NHS, as well as important digital services like providers of cloud computing and online search engines.”
