The Warwick Manufacturing group’s Cyber Security Centre (CSC) is to work with the Government’s Trustworthy Software Initiative over the next two years to improve the security of software.

CSC director Tim Watson said: “The trend to embed software in everyday items is accelerating, but there are concerns about the quality of the software that underpins all of this, and we have not seen significant improvements.”

Tony Dyhouse, knowledge-transfer director at Trustworthy Software Initiative, said: “Our daily lives and industrial processes are now heavily reliant on a wide range of underpinning software, yet the root cause of many cyber security problems is untrustworthy software — caused by vulnerabilities relating to safety, reliability, availability, resilience and security.

“There is a pressing need to address the quality and robustness of our software — to establish its trustworthiness. This is the mission of the Trustworthy Software Initiative, which is supported and funded through the Government’s National Cyber Security Programme.

"We are currently engaged with 25 Higher Education institutions; that number will grow as the projects under way mature and develop.”