Cybersecurity Policy Report, U.K. Cyber Chief: Corporate Leaders Aren’t Serious Enough About Cyber, (Mar 26, 2021)

By Tom Leithauser

Corporate leaders still don’t take cybersecurity seriously enough and should start treating data security as seriously as they do legal or financial risks, according to Lindy Cameron, the new chief executive officer of the United Kingdom’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC).

"Cybersecurity is still not taken as seriously as it should be and simply is not embedded into the U.K.’s boardroom thinking," Ms. Cameron said today during her first speech as NCSC’s head.

"The pace of change is no excuse—in boardrooms, digital literacy is as non-negotiable as financial or legal literacy. Our CEOs should be as close to their CISO—their chief information security officer—as their finance director or their general counsel," she said.

Speaking to a virtual audience from Queen's University in Belfast, Ms. Cameron recounted the accomplishments of the NCSC since it was created by the U.K. government five years ago.

"In the creation of the National Cyber Security Centre, don't underestimate how radical a notion it was—and indeed how unusual it still is—to combine secret intelligence with a truly public-facing body committed to openness and transparency, intent on delivering for business and citizens," she said.

She suggested that other nations, including the U.S., could learn from the NCSC’s success as they seek to revamp their own government structures to address cyber threats.

"We can see today, in the debate playing out about how the new U.S. administration chooses to organize itself on cybersecurity, the challenges others have in emulating this approach," she said. "The U.K. should be really proud, both of what has been achieved, and of how we've done it."

The NCSC reflects "a genuinely whole-of-nation approach to cybersecurity, with a competent national technical authority with brilliant intelligence insights, genuine technical expertise, deep relationships with industry, and focused on outcomes," Ms. Cameron said.

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