Roberts, who lists scuba-diving as a hobby, has postponed his summer holiday until next month so he can finish the Ofwat tome and come up for air. But for the man who oversees United Utilities Water (formerly called North West Water), there is no dodging it.Fletcher’s draft report, which will be set in stone in December, has set prices for the company’s seven million water customers, and specified how much it can invest to upgrade the water network and implement the new environmental improvements required under EU law. The National Lottery Commission’s annual report, ominously published on Friday 13, is a mixed blessing for Camelot. On the surface, the report suggests that life is good for the National Lottery operator. Hackers need to understand that their actions have real consequences, and the industry needs to examine its relationship with them.”There should certainly be better criminal penalties,” she says.

“And an ethical discussion should be part of it.” This means IT companies should be wary of employing hackers, even for testing. “If you don’t trust someone, you shouldn’t give them a contract,” she says “I vote with my wallet.”. Hackers are very good at sharing information; it is sometimes harder for IT companies.”She believes that the industry should not use this inequality as an excuse for not writing better, more secure software. “If you are writing software, at the bug level you have to close every avenue of attack The hacker only has to get through one. “You do have to make sure that the file permissions are not set to something ridiculous.”But the industry will always be playing catch-up with the hackers, which is why stiffer penalties for cyber crime are also part of the IT industry’s security agenda “In some ways it is an unequal battle,” Davidson admits. The lack of biodiversity means that you are not resistant to cyber plagues.

If you had greater diversity, you would have more resistance to viruses and worms. You can’t expect enterprises to have one of every operating system, application and anti-virus software, as there would be no economies of scale. But there is a happy medium, for security reasons as well as others.”Davidson does concede that the IT industry could do more to make its products more robust and to educate its customers in the best way to use them. “Part of what we provide to customers is advice on how to set up the different operating systems,” she says. So they did not think about attacks from client machines but focused on ease of use, and they have done a good job at that.