I've been writing to the Times after a spate of cybersecurity issues (M&S, Co-op, Harrods...) Here's one letter recently written that puts my views concisely!

After weeks of articles about cyberattacks, The Times on 13 May had a 12 page insert on Cybersecurity. It had lots of painful stories. It painted a horrifying picture of unpreparedness.

The next day's Times said Chinese tech systems (specifically, Chinese cellular IoT modules, which are practically everywhere) can easily be used in further cyberattacks. There was an article in the same issue, "Co-op shelves empty after hack causes chaos", in the same issue.

The common theme is that hardly anyone in the UK is qualified in cybersecurity, let alone in IT. There is no regulation to ensure IT practitioners are competent and up to date. In every other critical field, say gas fitting, practitioners are regulated and must be qualified. Yet now IT has taken over everything (it's even in gas boilers) the Government wants to reduce IT and AI regulation to stimulate innovation.

On the contrary, as all the depressing cybersecurity articles make clear, when IT professionals are educated, competent and well-regulated we will see a tremendous boost in the UK's GDP, as well as other desirable impacts such as a reduction in patient harms in the NHS (a sad example from the Times Cybersecurity insert).

Then the article by Alice Thomson, "University crisis demands a complete reboot" (The Times, 14 May, p21), while using an IT metaphor fails to join the dots. We could start to solve all the problems - boost universities, make the NHS a better place to work, and avoid lots of cyberattacks and business failures - by having more university qualifications in that essential subject: critical IT.