Keynote address to FT Cyber Resilience Summit 2025

Security Minister Dan Jarvis's speech at 22 Bishopsgate on the government's action to tackle cybercrime.

It’s a great pleasure to be here with you here in the City of London.

It’s a place where 2,000-year-old historical monuments stand alongside modern skyscrapers. 

But before I address the present, I want to say something about the past.

The road we’re on right now was one of the first ever streets in London to be gaslit - and I’m not lying about that.

St. Helen’s Church, which is just behind us, is where Shakespeare lived and worked.

Perhaps one of you here today is a potential playwright, and you’ve been looking for inspiration for a Security Minister character you’re writing.

Well don’t worry, I’m not going to break into a one-act rendition of Hamlet; I’d like to focus today, on my remarks on deterring malicious actors, rather than becoming one myself.

In fact, Bishopsgate gets its name from one of the ancient gates, built into the Roman wall, which helped regulate trade and kept the city secure. 

Trade and security have always depended upon each other.

Without security, commercial centres like the City of London would struggle to survive.

Without trade, we wouldn’t be able to fund the security measures that keep us safe.

That was true in the Roman past, and it is true today.

But when it comes to today’s traders, it’s less about brick walls and more about firewalls, and every example of technological innovation brings with it many opportunities, both helpful and harmful.

Now by all modern markers, these are unprecedented times. 

Not only do we have armed conflict on the continent, but hybrid threats from state and non-state actors have become the norm, blurring the line between war and peace.

And cybercrime – our focus today – is an ever-expanding threat landscape.

If it were a national economy, cybercrime would be the third largest in the world.

Some experts have claimed that online scams are set to cost the world $27 trillion a year by 2027.