Examination of Witnesses (Questions 80
- 85)
WEDNESDAY 29 NOVEMBER 2006
MR DAVID
HENDON CBE, MR
GEOFF SMITH,
MR TIM
WRIGHT AND
MR STEPHEN
WEBB
Q80 Lord Howie of Troon:
Can you tell us how many states have followed California's example?
Mr Smith: Not accurately.
Q81 Lord Howie of Troon:
Is it half or—
Mr Smith: No, I think it is more than half.
I think it is nearer 30 or 40.
Q82 Baroness Sharp of Guildford:
Is there a big skills gap in this area of security issues, and
if so what is the Government doing about it?
Mr Smith: We referred to the skills gap in our
evidence essentially because we do a survey every two years of
business and we are looking at what has been the impact of security
breaches on those businesses and how they have responded. One
of the findings of that was that there was, if you like, a knowledge
or skills gap amongst businesses in how they should deal with
this problem. Similarly, as we have discussed several times already,
there is a skills gap by home users on the importance of keeping
software up to date, for example. We tried to address both issues
through outreach activities aimed at businesses. My department
has a long history of providing tools and information on that
subject. We have recently developed a Knowledge Transfer Network
which we funded from our innovation programme to again get best
practice out to businesses. I think the key way of addressing
skills in the home user is the Get Safe Online campaign, which
we have already alluded to several times.
Q83 Baroness Sharp of Guildford:
You are not thinking in terms of any form of accreditation scheme
or licensing scheme for such information on security?
Mr Smith: I thank you for the question because
there is something I should have added. In the last year or so
we have worked with security professionals to develop something
called the Institute of Information Security Professionals, which
I think is a world's first as professional body for experts in
this area, and I think it is quite an exciting development. The
extent to which that will lead to qualifications I think is still
undecided, but it will certainly give evidence of competence and
professional standing for those people, and I think that can only
be beneficial. How you would actually get certification or accreditation
down to the grass roots level I think is a much more difficult
and long-term challenge. I am not sure I have a ready answer for
you on that today.
Q84 Chairman:
Thank you. I think we are going to have to wrap it up now because
we are running out of time and we are losing Members of the Committee
rapidly to go to the Chamber. I am going to ask a very short question
and I hope there is a very short answer to it. Is the Government
doing anything specific about horizon scanning?
Mr Smith: Yes.
Q85 Chairman:
Via a foresight panel or something?
Mr Smith: We have had a foresight project on
e-crime which looked at it over a 15 year timeframe and that is
actually helping people focus on research. We have recently started
a network and innovation security platform, which is a new concept,
again to try and address the big social picture of how we trust
networks, and within Government we have experts whose sole occupation
is to look for new problems.
Chairman: Thank you very much. Your evidence
has been extremely interesting and extremely useful. I do not
know whether you have anything more you want to say now? We are
always open to input, so if you think of something which you think
might be useful to us, please write to us and let us have it.
Again, let me thank you very much indeed for your very useful
evidence.
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