​Brexit increases Cyber Security risks

I’m posting this story from London a few minutes after Prime Minister David Cameron announced his resignation following the decision to exit the EU. What is the implication of this momentous vote on Britain?

The natural consequence is that Europe will be extremely bruised by being rejected by Britain. It would expect that cooperation between Britain with European partners will be more strained. The threat intelligence sharing that is part and parcel of their relationship has got to take an immediate impact.

There are a number of European Hubs that are London based. In the background I can see Mr Putin smiling as Europe and the notion of a united EU starts to crumble. The CEO of Vodafone has already indicated that their company, which is one of the largest in Britain could move headquarters from London.

Financial Hub

The strength of London as a Financial Hub will undoubtedly take a hit and today Barclays Bank stock is down 35%, just in a few minutes that trading began. There is a direct historical correlation has between the strength of the financial sector and cyber security.

There is talk that Brexit will bring a recession to Britain, thus I would expect that Britain’s financial sector strength will be significantly dampened by this milestone. We also have in London a strong Fintech hub that is associated with this ecosystem, this will also be negatively effected.

Reduced access to talent

The separation from the EU, brings another challenge and this is that there will be more restricted resource access from Europe. Fundamental to the European Union has been the free movement of goods and services. That is now over.

As well documented there is a global supply issue of cyber security talent, given that the British Pound is taking a 10% overnight pounding – any roles are also less attractive than they have been in the past.

No doubt it will be harder to find cyber security talent.

Single Digital Market

The aim later this year was “to create a Digital Single Market, where the free movement of goods, persons, services and capital is ensured — and where citizens and businesses can seamlessly and fairly access online goods and services: whatever their nationality, and wherever they live”

It had been envisaged that Europe was moving to a common market and correspondingly the whole idea of ‘Safe Harbour’ was created. The concept of a shared data standard for privacy etc has been integral with this philosophy.

A single digital market, which would be protected by cyber security is now never going to happen. Moreover Britain now has a period of unrest within their own borders and with their neighbours to cooperate on cyber security matters.

But having direct impact on the financial sector will have a negative consequence for cyber security.