£30 million UK Cybersecurity Research Complex Opens

The recent surge in hacking attacks and other cyber felonies has prompted the UK government to launch a new £30 million cybercrime research centre to crack down on hackers and online criminals.

The research facility, dubbed as "The Centre for Secure Information Technologies (CIST)", will be installed at Queen’s University in Belfast.

The centre will focus on developing newer hardware technologies as well as programmes to keep a check on soaring cyber crime and ensure safe and secure storage of data.

The ambitious project is being supported by a number of multinational companies, including Thales UK and BAE Systems, which are expecting that the new centre would provide them an extra shield from online attacks.

A host of international research institutes, including the Technology Strategy Board, and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, will also be participating in the scheme.

The centre will have specialists from various complementary fields, such as data encryption, wireless enabled security systems, network security tools, and intelligent video analysis.

Professor Peter Gregson, Vice-Chancellor at the Queen’s University, welcomed this new by saying, “The opening of CSIT at Queen's, is the most bold and exciting development the United Kingdom has seen to date in terms of information security.”