Executives gather for cyberspace summit

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY HEAVYWEIGHTS are gathering in London for a two day seminar on the threat of cyber security attacks.

The event, which follows warnings from Foreign Secretary William Hague and the head of communications spook agency GCHQ, will discuss what should be done about the increasing number of attacks on government and industry systems.

So great is this threat that it has forced the government to tell us twice in recent months that it has some £650m in funds to tackle it.

Lining up to hear what William Hague and others will say about the disturbing number of attacks on UK systems are luminaries that include EU digital chief Neelie Kroes, Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales and Cisco VP Brad Boston, according to a report at the BBC.

According to the experts, attacks on government systems are an every day event, and are increasing in scale and ferocity.

Yesterday, writing in the Times newspaper, Ian Lobban, the head of spy agency GCHQ, painted a bleak picture of our defencess, one bleak enough to justify any draconian cyber security laws the government might like to write. µ