The UK government plans to invest the equivalent of €25 million to help vulnerable African and Pacific countries build cyber defenses to prevent China, Russia and others from filling the “vacuum in cyberspace.”
British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said that the U.K. investment would be used to support national cyber response teams, advise mass online security awareness campaigns, and collaborate with Interpol to set up a new cyber operations center in Africa.
This center would operate in Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria and Rwanda to help combat cybercrime in fast-growing economies, the foreign office said.
Free cyberspace
Raab said the UK and its partners need to take action to ensure that there is a free, open and peaceful cyberspace in the face of hostile states seeking to undermine democratic elections and turn the Internet into a lawless space.
“We have to win hearts and minds around the world for a much broader space, for our positive vision of a cyberspace… For the benefit of the whole world,” Raab said at an online security conference.
“Frankly, we also have to stop China, Russia and other countries from filling the multilateral vacuum. That means doing much more to support the poorest and most vulnerable countries, which are most at risk.”
Last month, the United Kingdom joined the United States in saying that Russia’s foreign intelligence service was responsible for hacking SolarWinds, which affected nine federal agencies and hundreds of private sector companies.
Emerging technologies
The UK’s top cyber spy also warned in April that the West needed to act urgently to ensure that China does not dominate important emerging technologies and gain control of the “global operating system.”
Raab said that the U.K. investment would be used to support national cyber response teams, advise mass online security awareness campaigns, and collaborate with Interpol to set up a new cyber operations center in Africa.
This center would operate across Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria and Rwanda to help combat cybercrime in the rapidly growing economies, the foreign office said.
