UK to classify data centers as ‘critical national infrastructure’

UK data centers will be classified as “critical national infrastructure”, the government said on Thursday (September 12th), giving the servers and IT systems that underpin the country’s communications extra protection against cyber attacks.

Britain said the move would reassure companies building data centers such as DC01UK, which it said had submitted proposals for a 3.75 billion pound ($4.88 billion) investment in the Europe’s largest data center in Hertfordshire.

On Wednesday, Amazon’s cloud computing arm, Amazon Web Services, said it would spend £8bn in the UK over the next five years to build and operate data centres.

The government said the new designation would put data centers on an equal footing with water and power and allow them to minimize damage to the economy in the event of critical incidents.

“Bringing data centers under the national critical infrastructure regime will enable better coordination and cooperation with government against cyber criminals and unexpected events,” said technology minister Peter Kyle.

A number of recent incidents have highlighted how vulnerable services are to IT disruptions. In July, for example, the Crowd Strike disruption disrupted appointments at health services across the country.

($1 = £0.7680)

(Reporting by Sarah Young, editing by Paul Sandle)