The Scottish Government has recruited a head of cyber who will take up responsibility for a new division focused on raising national cybersecurity resilience levels.
Alan Gray, who was formerly chief information security officer for the UK Government’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office in East Kilbride, has been unveiled in the role as Scotland moves into 2024 with an increased focus on online security.
Gray, who holds a master’s in computer engineering from the University of Strathclyde, announced his new position on LinkedIn.
Gray, pictured below, said: “I’m very pleased to announce that this week I have joined The Scottish Government, to head up their new Cyber Division. As the cyber security threats facing Scotland continue to grow and evolve, it is really encouraging to see the level of commitment and effort towards increasing our national cyber resilience, and to ensuring that ‘Scotland thrives by being a digitally secure and resilient nation’.
“I’d like to thank everyone at The FCDO and across the security community for all their help and support in my previous role – and I’m excited to meet all my new colleagues and looking forward to working with the teams to deliver on this goal – watch this space!”
Geoff Huggins, digital director at the Scottish Government, had signalled the move in an online staff townhall in November.
He confirmed that the existing Cyber Resilience Unit, a policy division that does external outreach work, will move from the Justice Directorate into the Digital Directorate.
He said: “I think that’s showing a growing degree of confidence in the directorate, that people are coming to us and asking how we can help them plot the future, in terms of what they’re looking to do.”
Alan Gray will be speaking at Futurescot’s Cyber Security 2024 at Strathclyde University’s Technology & Innovation Centre.