Marks & Spencer estimate the cyber-attack first reported in April will cost it over £300 million in lost profit and the disruption to its services could last into next month.
It goes without saying that other companies, particularly those reliant on online sales, will be nervously hoping their digital security is more robust than M&S, which at least has the fallback of traditional over-the-counter high street retailing.
These are not victimless crimes, and at an estimated cost of £27 billion annually in the UK alone, cybercrime means higher prices for customers, so it was good to visit Heriot Watt University last week to hear about the work they are doing to develop an ultra-secure “quantum internet” of the future.
Heriot Watt’s Integrated Quantum Networks (IQN) Hub is leading a network of five hubs in a £160m UK Government project which hopes to develop secure communications and an unhackable internet using subatomic particles. It’s at the forefront of scientific research and the possibilities certainly boggled my mind.
But at a more basic level, the £20m of corporate investment at the Riccarton Campus is essential as universities are under so much financial pressure because the funding they receive from the Scottish Government is not enough to maintain and grow their reputations in a fiercely competitive international market for academic research. But what’s also important is that a major Edinburgh institution is at the heart of a technological revolution which is only just starting and can provide hundreds of well-paid jobs of the future.
