UK ups protections of data centers

LONDON—U.K. Technology Secretary Peter Kyle announced on Sept. 12 that the government would classify data centers as “Critical National Infrastructure” (CNI) in a move that experts say positions the country as one of the safest for business. 

It’s the first CNI designation in almost a decade, since the Space and Defense sectors gained the same status in 2015, according to the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology. 

“Recognizing data centers as critical infrastructure is an important step in improving the overall cyber resilience of the U.K. against critical incidents,” said Andy Kays, CEO of Socura, a Welsh cybersecurity company. “As we witnessed during the recent Crowdstrike outage this summer, as well as attacks on public institutions such as the NHS, IT and cyber-related incidents have the impact to cause significant disruption and endanger lives.” 

The CNI designation will cover both the physical data centers and the cloud operators that use them to supply services like iCloud, including companies such as Microsoft, Amazon and Google. 

The government says the designation will boost confidence in investing in data centers in the country – an industry that generates an estimated £4.6 billion in revenues a year. 

In fact, the designation comes as the government welcomes a proposed £3.75 billion investment in Europe’s largest data center planned in Hertfordshire by data company DC01UK. It's estimated the center will directly create more than 700 local jobs and support 13,740 data and tech jobs across the country.  

“In truth, most data centers operated by large tech companies already meet the highest standards of security and operational resilience,” Kays said. “However, extra support from a dedicated CNI data infrastructure team, which can help anticipate attacks and support incident response, can only be viewed as a positive. The move also sends an important message to business leaders – that the U.K. is looking to cement its position as one of the safest countries in the world to do business.” 

Cyberattacks and ransomware incidents continue to grow, becoming major sources of economic and service disruption across the globe. Recent incidents include successful attacks and infiltration against Fortinet, Microsoft and Kawasaki to name a few.  

“Data centers are the engines of modern life,” Kyle stated in the announcement. “They power the digital economy and keep our most personal information safe. Bringing data centers into the Critical National Infrastructure regime will allow better coordination and cooperation with the government against cyber criminals and unexpected events.”