Sectary of State for Digital, Culture and Media, Matt Hancock, will today officially open the London Office for Rapid Cybersecurity Advancement (LORCA) a government-funded cybersecurity centre in East London.
Speaking in a released statement Mr Hancock commented: “We are investing £1.9 billion to protect the nation from cyber threats, have introduced new laws to strengthen our defences, and developed a wealth of free help and guidance for businesses available through our National Cyber Security Centre.”
The new centre will be based at the East London Innovation Centre located at the Here East digital creative campus.
LORCA is underpinned by a collaboration between Deloitte’s cyber team and the Centre for Secure Information technologies at Queen’s University Belfast.
Stephen Wray, Director of Cyber Innovation at Deloitte commented in a statement: ‘’We are supporting clients solve cyber challenges in over 150 countries. LORCA will connect innovators with these global market opportunities.’’
The aim of the centre will be to bring together different elements of leading UK cyber security companies and innovators.
‘’It’s fantastic to open this new centre where some of our most talented entrepreneurs and innovative companies will develop the cyber security technology of tomorrow. This will boost London’s booming tech sector and benefit businesses across the country,’’ commented Matt Hancock.
In research commissioned by LORCA they found that half of the large business surveyed had experienced a cyber-attack in the last 12 months.
Also detailed in the research was that out of 500 UK C-Level executives interviewed 53 percent did not have a formalised protocol set up to deal with cyber-attacks.
Working Groups
Ten organisations are expected to be announced today that will make up the centres first working groups. Such as B-Secur, who currently are developing a system of authentication through the use of biometric technology and a user’s heartbeat.
Lydia Ragoonanan, Director of LORCA, said in a release that: “By bringing all these things together in our new centre we will stay ahead and help British businesses grow and succeed.”
‘’The threats posed to businesses by cyber-attacks are continually changing. We’re proud to be working with industry to understand their needs, with investors who can help develop the solutions scale at pace, and with incredible innovators who are helping secure UK’s position as a world leader in cyber security,’’ noted Ragoonanan.