Drawing on Estonia’s experience of 2007, the UK set up a Joint Cyber Reserve unit in 2013, which is intended to recruit hundreds of hackers as reservists, irrespective of whether they have been convicted of hacking offences. The Royal Navy's decision to install a variant of Windows XP as the operating system on its missile-carrying Vanguard-class submarines may have been cheaper, however, the off-the-shelf "Windows for Submarines" is also more vulnerable to malware, hence there are more bugs in circulation that could impact it. A report by security firm Trend Micro found that nearly half of all vulnerabilities it looked at were related to malware and spyware. This revelation follows criticisms that the UK's cyber fortifications are inadequate. The UK depends on the invisibility and stealth of submarines for its Trident nuclear missiles, therefore these developments could impact the on-going debate over Trident.
The Royal Navy's decision to install a variant of Windows XP as the operating system on its missile-carrying Vanguard-class submarines may have been cheaper, however, the off-the-shelf "Windows for Submarines" is also more vulnerable to malware, hence there are more bugs in circulation that could impact it. A report by security firm Trend Micro found that nearly half of all vulnerabilities it looked at were related to malware and spyware. This revelation follows criticisms that the UK's cyber fortifications are inadequate. The UK depends on the invisibility and stealth of submarines for its Trident nuclear missiles, therefore these developments could impact the on-going debate over Trident.