QUEEN’S WELCOMES NEW NATIONAL CYBER SECURITY CENTRE CEO, LINDY CAMERON CB OBE

26 March 2021

Queen’s and the Centre for Secure Information Technologies (CSIT) today (Friday, 26 March) welcomed the new CEO of the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), Lindy Cameron, CB OBE, at a joint virtual event.

Ms Cameron was previous Director-General in the Northern Ireland Office and at the Department for International Development. She took up the new role as CEO of the NCSC in October 2020 from her predecessor, Ciaran Martin.

With more than two decades of national security policy and crisis management experience, Ms Cameron will lead the UK’s principal technical authority on cyber security as it continues to help make the UK the safest place to live and work online.

In her first speech in the role, Ms Cameron paid tribute to the bold decision to create a public-facing cyber security organisation, while warning against complacency in the face of developing threats and new challenges. She also set out her vision of how the NCSC can help to further increase the UK's cyber resilience and usher in a new era of technological ambition, agility and internationalism to make the UK the safest place to live and do business online. 

Speaking at the virtual event, Ms Cameron said:

“The cyber security landscape we see now in the UK reflects huge progress and relative strength – but it is not a position we can be complacent about. Cyber security is still not taken as seriously as it should be, and simply is not embedded into the UK’s boardroom thinking.

“The National Cyber Security Centre – launched five years ago – is now a firmly embedded part of the UK cyber security landscape. We no longer need to prove the concept – but in what will be a challenging period of economic recovery, we need to change the dial on the outcomes we seek, and look much further ahead to the generational change that is needed. 

“We need to ensure that our adversaries – be they state or criminal, traditional or new – think twice before attacking UK targets. And we need to ensure that future generations are better equipped to deal with this complexity than any of their predecessors.” 

Welcoming Ms Cameron into her new role and to Queen’s, Professor Máire O’Neill, Director of the Institute of Electronics, Communications and Information Technology (ECIT) and Principal Investigator at CSIT said:

“We were privileged to welcome Lindy Cameron to deliver her inaugural speech in her new role as CEO of the NCSC. With strong links to Northern Ireland, we are delighted to be working with someone with such a deep understanding of the environment in which we operate.

“We look forward to hopefully welcoming Ms Cameron to Queen’s and CSIT for an in-person visit in the near future.”

For media enquiries, please contact Communications Office at Queen’s University Belfast.

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