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GCHQ has plans to create a firewall that could protect government agencies and British internet users against malicious cyber attacks.

Ciaran Martin, the intelligence agency’s director general of cyber security, outlined his plans for the firewall at a cybersecurity conference in Washington DC. Martin was speaking as the head of the National Cyber Security Centre – a newly-created arm of GCHQ that has been tasked with creating the first “cyber force” dedicated to combating online threats to the UK.


According to Martin, GCHQ is exploring a “flagship project” aimed at protecting government websites and national security agencies from hacks and other cyber attacks. He went on to say that the as-yet-unbuilt firewall could also be used by private internet service providers such as BT, Sky and Virgin.

“What better way of providing automated defences at scale than by the major private providers effectively blocking their customers from coming into contact with known malware and bad addresses?” Martin asked the audience at the seventh annual Billington CyberSecurity Summit.

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The National Cyber Security Centre, which was announced by former chancellor George Osborne in November last year, is set to open in October 2016. When he announced the creation of the new agency, Osborne also pledged to increase the country’s cybersecurity budget, almost doubling it to £1.9 billion for the years 2016 - 2021 while also adding 1,900 new staff to the UK’s intelligence agencies.

In March 2016, then Minister for the Cabinet Office, Matt Hancock, said of the centre: “It will be the authoritative voice on information security in the UK and one of its first tasks will be to work with the Bank of England to produce advice for the financial sector for managing cyber security effectively.”

Martin told the audience that the UK was facing twice as many “national security level cyber incidents” as this time last year. GCHQ now detects about 200 serious incidents every month from hackers trying to disrupt government websites and systems.


The National Cyber Security Centre also has plans to develop automated protection against high-volume but relatively simple cyber attacks such as using fake government email addresses to target members of the public.

"We trialled it, and whoever was sending 58,000 malicious emails per day from taxrefund@gov.uk isn't doing it anymore," Martin said.

Be there or be hacked. On October 20, we will be hosting our first WIRED Security – a new one-day event curated to explore, explain and predict new trends, threats and defences in cyber security. Find out more about the speakers, or book tickets.