Under the strategy, the aim is to create a cybersecurity operations centre to bring together the expertise of MI5/MI6's various IT security divisions, GCHQ in Cheltenham and the Metropolitan Police.

Announcing the strategy, Lord West, the government's security minister, says that, whilst GCHQ was not in the habit of employing any criminals, it nonetheless needs the expertise of former "naughty boys."

"You need youngsters who are deep into this stuff. If they have been slightly naughty boys, very often they really enjoy stopping other naughty boys."

Lord West confirmed to reporters that the government has already faced cyberattacks from foreign states such as China and Russia, but denied that hackers had successfully broken into government systems and stolen secret information.

It's not all IT with the strategy, Infosecurity notes, as the gameplan also seeks to understand how the UK will cope with natural disasters such as a flu pandemic or climate change.

The aim of the strategy plan looks similar to that outlined by President Bush in the US a few years ago, when the then president outlined plans to protect the national infrastructure from any form of IT-assisted attacks.

According to the UK government, meanwhile, William Nye, Director of the National Security Secretariat at the Cabinet Office, will flesh out Britain's cybersecurity strategy on Thursday of next week, when he speaks at the Homeland & Border Security 09 event at the QEII Conference Centre in London.

Rick Howard, director of intelligence at Verisign's open source iDefense intelligence operation, says he remains cautiously optimistic abut the government plans outlined so far.

At this point, he says, it is still too early to tell if these efforts will fundamentally change the UK's collective effectiveness against the cybercrime community.

Howard - who until 2004 served as chief of the US Army's Computer Emergency Response Team - says he applauds the work on both sides of the Atlantic to handle cybersecurity issues.

It is great, he says, that we (as a nation) are becoming so much more savvy of the online threats around us.

"It is encouraging to hear about the British authorities reaching out to the white hat hacker community; the Russians and the Chinese have been doing that for years and are way ahead of both the US and the UK in this regard."