{"id":42536,"date":"2021-10-26T10:16:21","date_gmt":"2021-10-26T10:16:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/?guid=534645897868fa499722561ba2bf3a86"},"modified":"2021-10-26T10:16:21","modified_gmt":"2021-10-26T10:16:21","slug":"uk-spy-agencies-supercharge-espionage-efforts-with-aws-data-deal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/uk-spy-agencies-supercharge-espionage-efforts-with-aws-data-deal\/","title":{"rendered":"UK spy agencies supercharge espionage efforts with AWS data deal"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n Connor Jones<\/a><\/span>
\n <\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n
26 Oct, 2021<\/span><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

Amazon Web Services (AWS<\/a>) has signed what is likely to be a lucrative\u00a0data deal with the UK’s top intelligence services to store and analyse information\u00a0for the purposes of espionage.<\/p>\n

GCHQ, MI5, and MI6 will store information using AWS’ cloud services, according to the\u00a0Financial Times<\/em><\/a>, which reports that the deal has been made so the UK spy agencies\u00a0can\u00a0harness the data analytics and artificial intelligence (AI) tools the AWS platform provides.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\nAWS will also reportedly equip the agencies with tools that\u00a0enable easier\u00a0data sharing between overseas field locations and rapid translation of audio recordings.<\/p>\n

Other government departments such as the Ministry of Defence will also use the cloud service offering during joint operations, according to the\u00a0FT<\/em>‘s report.<\/p>\n

GCHQ was leading the calls for a cloud security platform which could be used across the intelligence services, the report added.\u00a0The deal was signed this year and all data will be stored in the UK,\u00a0with Amazon’s main e-commerce company having no access or oversight of the data at all.<\/p>\n

IT Pro\u00a0<\/em>contacted GCHQ\u00a0and AWS and both\u00a0declined to comment on the matter.<\/p>\n

GCHQ’s ambition to further embed AI into its intelligence practices was highlighted in a\u00a02020 Royal United Services Institute (Rusi) report<\/a>\u00a0in which it claimed UK spies would need to use AI in order to stymie modern-day cyber attackers.<\/p>\n

The report claimed there were three key areas in which AI would be able to benefit the GCHQ;\u00a0analysis of intelligence, cyber security operations, and the automation of administrative tasks.<\/p>\n

Echoing this claim, panellists including Moonpig’s head of cyber Tash Norris said during a 2021\u00a0IT Pro Panel<\/a>\u00a0that the best AI applications for cyber security will be in detection and response tasks like SIEM, SOAR, and EDR.\u00a0The sentiment is echoed in the Rusi report, which stated that AI will never replace strong human judgement.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Commenting on an October 2021 claim made by the Pentagon’s former chief software officer that China has won the AI battle with the US, Jeremy Fleming, director at GCHQ, said he doesn’t subscribe to the idea, though he added that “China by more or less any measure is doing well in the development of AI capabilities”.<\/p>\n

Addressing delegates at The Cipher Brief Annual Threat Conference on Monday, Fleming also\u00a0claimed<\/a>\u00a0the UK saw twice the number of ransomware attacks in 2021 compared to 2020. Attacks are proliferating “because it works; it just pays,” he said. <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Connor Jones<\/p>\n

26 Oct, 2021 <\/p>\n

Amazon Web Services (AWS) has signed what is likely to be a lucrative\u00a0data deal with the UK’s top intelligence services to store and analyse information\u00a0for the purposes of espionage.
\nGCHQ, MI5,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":507,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-42536","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42536","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/507"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42536"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42536\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42537,"href":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42536\/revisions\/42537"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42536"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42536"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42536"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}