The government has announced a new fund to help universities and colleges teach young people how to secure their technology against cyber-attack.

The £500,000 fund will be administered by the Higher Education Academy in a move to train a new generation of students about cyber-security.

The fund was announced this week by the minister for digital economy, Ed Valzey, at the Financial Times Cyber Security Europe Summit. With £1 out of every £5 earned on the Internet going to UK business, it is perhaps of no surprise that Britain has increasingly come under cyber-attack. However, the scale of the problem may surprise some, as a 2015 survey showed that 74% of small businesses and 90% of major business have suffered a cyber-breach in the last year.

Mr. Valzey asserted, “Good cyber-security underpins the entire digital economy. We need it to keep our businesses, citizens and public services safe. The UK is a world leader in the use of digital technologies but we also need to be a world leader in cyber-security.”

The government have also launched a ‘Cyber Essentials’ scheme for business, designed to encourage good practice in information security with the use of firewalls, secure configurations, access control, malware protection and patch management. With 1,000 businesses already signing up, it si clear that they are taking cyber-security seriously.

Valzey continued, “Trust and confidence in UK online security is crucial for consumers, businesses and investors. We want to make the UK the safest place in the world to do business online and Cyber Essentials is a great and simple way firms can protect themselves.”

Cyber security is a serious issue for our online economy and initiatives like Cyber Essentials certainly help to ensure business is doing all it can to protect itself from attack. Meanwhile, making sure that a new generation is in step with cyber-security should help to protect the future too.