Agency for Innovation in Cyber Security founded!

There is a new German federal authority, the Agency for Innovation in Cyber Security, which is intended to ensure greater security in the IT sector. 350 million euros will be made available up to 2023 and are intended to ensure better IT security in Germany. Nevertheless there are dissenting voices to this new federal authority, from whom these dissenting voices come and with which arguments against the new federal authority is argued we explain in this blog post.

Protection of German citizens

According to the Federal Minister of Defence, Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, the new federal authority is a “milestone in the protection of our IT systems”. With the 350 million euros, approx. 100 jobs will be available from the start, which will be filled by IT security experts. The headquarters of the Agency for Innovation in Cyber Security is located in Halle. However, the headquarters in Halle is a temporary seat; from 2022, the federal authority is to be located at Leipzig/Halle Airport. The search for a location was one of the reasons why the foundation was postponed somewhat, because concrete plans for the Federal Cyber Agency have been in place since end of August 2018. The concrete task of the federal agency is to discover and promote promising developments in IT security. Various projects are to be created and carried out to gather new insights. All findings gained are to be made available to the Federal Government in order to improve internal and external IT security. In the long term, this should reduce dependence on foreign aid in the area of IT security.

Criticism of the Agency for Innovation in Cyber Security

There are several construction sites on which the new federal authority has to work. One of the major problems is the search for personnel. Finding 100 experts in the field of IT security is now the task of Research Director Prof. Dr. Igel, who has been a leading figure at the German Research Centre for Artificial Intelligence. The fact that an expert in the field of artificial intelligence is now the director of research in the field of IT security is criticized in a well-known IT security blog. A further point of criticism is that the Agency for Innovation in Cyber Security is jointly funded by the Ministry of Defence and the Federal Ministry of the Interior. The criticism here is that both ministries have little to do with IT security, because the Ministry of Defence deals with the area of offensive security and the Federal Ministry has not shown in the past, for example through the state Trojan, that it is particularly committed to IT security. In general, however, it remains to be seen what results the new federal authority can produce. It is, however, striking that many critics have been voicing criticism right from the start and doubt the usefulness of the Agency for Innovation in Cyber Security.