EXECUTIVE SUMMARY:

British lawmakers are still mulling over their options when it comes to a deal or no deal Brexit. Assuming that the UK eventually chooses to proceed with Brexit at all, the country is poised to encounter unique obstacles when it comes to securing the UK’s inter-European dependent infrastructure.

According to the World Bank, around 9% of the UK’s GDP comes from manufacturing, indicating that the industry represents a substantive sector of the economy. In 2018, nearly 50% of UK manufacturers parried a cyber security incident. Because roughly half of UK IT support comes from outside of the country, as Brexit looms nearer, the potential for employing the wider European IT talent pool may evaporate, leaving the UK with a shortage of skilled cyber security experts. The country may then experience increased vulnerability to cyber threats.

Infosecurity Magazine recommends that manufacturing companies take precautions by sharing threat intelligence and deploying single point of management systems.

Another aspect of Brexit’s impact on the country’s cyber security: coordinated communications between the UK’s government and corporations to thwart cyber threats may lag. “Our research shows that companies have long relied on cooperation with the state to wade away most sophisticated cyber offenders. Two in five organizations are sharing a range of data- on malware, ransomware or general cyber threats- with government groups or NGOs,” writes Verdict.

Many international communication cables land in the UK before being dispatched to other locales within Europe. A lack of public-private sector coordination combined with a cyber security skills shortage will potentially imperil the privacy and security of these correspondences.

“With or without agreements in force between the EU and UK, the life of [UK] cyber defenders is bound to become more difficult after Brexit,” reports an expert in the field.

Learn more at Infosecurity Magazine.