Britain’s Defense Ministry has announced it is creating a military cyber unit and has welcomed tech-savvy hackers to consider taking the Queen’s virtual shilling in a recruitment drive starting October.
The UK is channeling part of its military budget on recruiting
hundreds of computer experts to constitute the new Joint Cyber
Reserve Unit, the country’s Defense Secretary, Philip Hammond,
announced Sunday.
For the first time, the UK’s would-be cyber warriors will
be tasked with offensive missions.
"In response to the growing cyber threat, we are developing a
full-spectrum military cyber capability, including a strike
capability, to enhance the UK's range of military
capabilities," AFP reported Hammond as saying.
The Defense Secretary said he believed that a purely defensive
cyber unit was no longer enough for the country’s security.
“You deter people by having an offensive capability,” he
told The Daily Mail in an interview.
“We will build in Britain a cyber-strike capability so we can
strike back in cyberspace against enemies who attack us, putting
cyber alongside land, sea, air and space as a mainstream military
activity. Our commanders can use cyber weapons alongside
conventional weapons in future conflicts.”
Hammond described the ministry’s initiative as “an exciting
opportunity” for computer geniuses “to put their skills to
good use for the nation.”
Striking a patriotic chord is just part of the strategy for
luring IT geeks into the army. Cyber National Guard reservists
will be spared the current Territorial Army fitness tests,
Hammond said in the interview, where he touted the army going
digital as its biggest reform since World War I, when tanks
started replacing cavalry.
Hammond revealed the cyber unit plan to journalists in the MoD’s
nuclear bunker, becoming the first Defense Secretary to have been
photographed or interviewed there.
“Cyber weapons provide the tantalizing possibility of being
able to cripple the enemy without inflicting lasting damage on
them. No cities to rebuild, no infrastructure to
reconstruct.” Hammond said, adding the innovation was very
much in tune with attitudes in the US. “One of my American
counterparts put it to me like this: Why would you want to bomb
someone’s airfield if you could just switch it off with a
cyber-attack?”
The United States announced in March it was developing 40 new
teams of cyber-agents, citing alleged Iranian and Chinese hacker
attacks as reason behind the decision. Gen. Keith Alexander, the
head of the US Cyber Command who is also in charge of the
National Security Agency, announced 13 of the 40 cyber-squads
would be devoted toward offensive operations.
Britain’s capability to fully staff its own cyber military force
was questioned by a National Audit Office report in February, which revealed a shortage of UK
IT experts able to combat cyber-attacks.
The report blamed the government for not promoting science and
technology enough and quoted education officials saying that it
could take "up to 20 years to address the skills gap at all
levels of education."
The research also questioned the government’s capability to
attract IT experts to the public sector from more lucrative
private companies.
British MPs have also warned about the country’s susceptibility to
cyber-attacks. In January, the House of Commons Defense Select
Committee expressed particular alarm that the military were
excessively reliant on cyber systems for communication, which
could make them an easy target for hackers.