£30m cyber-security centre opens

A centre which will lead the way in the United Kingdom's fight against cyber crime opened officially in Belfast on Wednesday.

The £30m Centre for Secure Information Technologies (CSIT) at Queen's will become the UK's principal centre for the development of technology to counter malicious 'cyber-attacks'.

The centre will also create 80 new jobs.

It is hoped work at the centre will help keep crime off the internet, combat anti-social behaviour and street crime and safeguard information stored electronically, both at home and in the workplace.

Queen's University Vice-Chancellor Professor Peter Gregson said it was a "bold and exciting development".

"Cyber-security is a global issue that affects us all, 97% of business in the UK now relies on the internet and other IT systems.

"CSIT will become a vital reference point for all businesses working in this field and beyond."

CCTV

Professor John McCanny, CSIT principal investigator, said the centre would help the international community "tackle cyber security in a co-ordinated way".

The centre also hope to develop better protection for Pcs.

To help with this CSIT is developing powerful processors capable of screening huge volumes of data - equivalent to the Internet traffic produced by over 10,000 households - for malicious content and behaviour in real time, including online grooming.

CCTV cameras will also be an area of interest.

There are four million CCTV cameras in the United Kingdom, but very little of the footage in observed in real time.

CSIT hopes to develop hardware and software designed to analyse CCTV camera data in real time.

CSIT's research also covers specific areas which have been identified as being of strategic national security importance in major reports produced recently by the British and American governments.

Source : http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/northern_ireland/8271301.stm