London cyber innovation centre opens, welcomes first cohort

Today sees the opening of the London Office for Rapid Cybersecurity Advancement (LORCA) at the £13.5 million Here East innovation centre in Plexal City on the site of London's Olympic Park. The centre is developed and owned by Delancey's DV4 fund in partnership with Deloitte's cyber team and the Centre for Secure Information Technologies (CSIT) at Queen's University Belfast in a cross-disciplinary team with strategic, entrepreneurial, engineering and cyber-security technical skills.

The aim of the centre is for cyber security companies across all stages of growth to be helped address business challenges and achieve greater impact with their innovative solutions. Ten organisations that make up its first cohort have been announced:

B-Secur – Specialises in using biometric heartbeat as an authentication solution: applications include health and wellbeing.

Ioetec - Connects users to their Internet of Things devices securely, ensuring they devices remain safe to use.

Think Cyber Security – Improves security awareness with its RedFlags™ software product, which draws on behavioural science to deliver context-sensitive just-in-time guidance.

Trust Elevate – Delivers technical solutions for verified parental consent and age-checking challenges, for businesses that serve children and young people.

Aves Netsec – Has a 'Deception Solution' that is non-intrusive, non-disruptive and enables network-wide deployment of deception tactics for real-time detection and attacker intelligence harvesting.

Cybershield – Stops targeted phishing attacks and alerts employees before they mistakenly act on deceptive emails.

Cyberlytic – Uses AI to detect and prioritise web threats, cutting through the noise to identify dangerous attacks.

CyberOwl – Provides alerts from volumes of data using a platform that clearly prioritises cyber-risks.

Surevine – Is developing a distributed architecture which better supports supply-chain and cross-domain information sharing.

Zone Fox – Prevents data loss, ensures compliance and removes threats using AI and machine learning in its insider threat detection solution.

LORCA is also announcing today that Lloyds Banking Group will be the first founding partner and will be closely involved in selecting and supporting innovators, over and above Government funding, with a specific focus on cyber security in the financial industry.

Lydia Ragoonanan, director of LORCA, said: “The threats posed to businesses by cyber-attacks are continually changing. We're proud to be working with industry to understand their needs, with investors who can help develop the solutions scale at pace, and with incredible innovators who are helping secure UK's position as a world leader in cyber security.”

Matt Hancock, Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS), who will be opening the centre adds: "Britain's future prosperity will be based on its digital technology and no technology can work without cyber-security so expanding this sector is critical to our future. This will boost London's booming tech sector and benefit businesses across the country.”

Stephen Wray, director of Cyber Innovation at Deloitte, said:

“We look forward to bringing our domain expertise to help amplify the impact of LORCA Members for the benefit of the UK economy.”

Dr Godfrey Gaston, CSIT director, promised dedicated engine

ering support and delivery of an academic engagement and thought leadership programme saying, “This is a strategically important initiative and we are excited to start working with the next wave of UK cyber innovators.”

In an email to SC Media UK, Dr. Jamie Graves, CEO & founder, ZoneFox, one of the initial cohort of companies, said: "The UK has so much cyber talent and the mission of LORCA is to get that recognised on a global scale and help innovative start-ups grow their businesses. The support and networking that it will give start-ups and scale-ups such as ourselves will be a potential force multiplier for our business. In particular, we're looking forward to working and networking with other international cyber clusters and expanding our London footprint to accelerate the significant growth we have achieved over the last 18 months."

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The centre's opening coincides with specially commissioned research by LORCA showing that more than half of large businesses have suffered a cyber-security attack in the last 12 months, and almost a quarter of UK businesses (24 percent) don't think their cyber security solutions are fit for their needs.

As the business threat of cybercrime increases, the new study of 500 UK C-level executives also reveals that more than half (53 percent) do not have a formalised protocol in place for cyber-attacks.

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In a separate development, the City of London Police have launched a Cyber Mini Police pilot with Sir John Cass primary school in the City of London.

Children aged 8 to 10 will be taught about policing principles and cyber crime prevention, including learning about fraud and cyber crime.

At the end of the three week pilot, they will visit the City of London Police Museum to gain an insight into the history of the City of London Police.

Temporary Commander Pete O'Doherty said: “We have designed the programme so that the children receive age appropriate messages that allow them to feel that they have learnt about policing and cyber crime in a stimulating environment.

Miss Parry, class teacher at Sir John Cass Foundation Primary School said the programme gives the children: “... insight into the crimes that they should be aware of and although this training relates only to cyber crimes such a hacking, it also makes the children think about all aspects of online safety and how they can protect themselves”.