PLANS to spend over £4 million next year improving the government’s digital defence capabilities have been included in the proposed Budget amid efforts to respond to growing and “complex” cyber threats.
The Cyber Programme 2.0 funding cited in the intended spending plans unveiled by the Council of Ministers this week includes an allocation of £4,033,000 for 2027.
A further estimated spend of £300,000 is earmarked for 2028.
The government has stated that the funding, which falls under the wider information technology expenditure outlined in the proposed 2027 to 2030 Budget, is focused on “transforming our cyber security defence in various ways”.
The project, which builds on the implementation of the earlier Cyber Programme, seeks to ensure that government is capable of “adequately” responding to “the increasing complex cyber threat, which has grown in recent years due to the challenging geopolitical risk landscape”.
Matt Palmer, director of the Jersey and Guernsey Cyber Security Centres, said the plans for further investment in government cyber security demonstrated how important the matter was.
He stated: “We are seeing increasingly complex cyber threats around the world, and it would be naive to assume that Jersey won’t be affected.
“Recent cyber incidents have highlighted the Island’s reliance on global supply chains. But we also know that geopolitical risks and the increasing use of AI by threat actors is likely to affect our Island as well.”
