A new £50 million Defence Cyber Academy will help the UK and its allies “counter global cyber security threats”, Defence Secretary Ben Wallace has said.
The announcement came as UK and US defence chiefs attended the Atlantic Future Forum 2022 summit this week onboard HMS Queen Elizabeth, anchored in New York.
The Ministry of Defence said the launch of the academy, based in Shrivenham, Oxfordshire, comes after the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport revealed cyber attacks, including “espionage activity and ransomware infiltration across Government, has cost an estimated £100 million in the last year”.
Defence co-operation between the UK and the US is the broadest and deepest of any two countries in the world, and will continue to expand in the coming decades— Ben Wallace
The MoD said the expansion in UK-based cyber training builds on the work of the UK’s Defence Cyber School, opened in 2018, with the academy developing sovereign and international courses.
Mr Wallace said: “Defence co-operation between the UK and the US is the broadest and deepest of any two countries in the world, and will continue to expand in the coming decades.
“The Defence Cyber Academy builds on that collaboration, defining closer integration and shared capability, helping us and our allies counter global cyber security threats, staying one step ahead and at the forefront of this cutting-edge military domain.”
The MoD said the academy will support the training of defence personnel to “be at the forefront of cyber technology, strategy and operational preparedness”.
It added it would “benefit international partners, including the US, through exchanging knowledge and ideas in cyberspace operations”.
