CYBER crime is a growth industry with both Government and business as prime targets.

The threat is increasing day by day and goes far beyond industrial espionage and Nigerian money scams. Britain’s computer networks are being bombarded on an unprecedented scale.

The Government faces around 33,000 cyber attacks each month from sophisticated criminals and state-sponsored groups, according to Chloe Smith, Minister for Political and Constitutional Reform. A far greater number of less sophisticated emails and spam are also blocked.

That is just what the Government has to contend with.

Cyber crime is estimated to cost the UK £27 billion a year. Most of the money is stolen by organised criminal gangs.

The problem also takes in terrorist groups, rogue states and bands of militant hackers - hacking group Anonymous has been linked to bringing down Japanese government websites, as well as targeting businesses, including PayPal, Mastercard and Visa.

With so much of infrastructure controlled by computer, experts fear a successful attack could shut down our electricity grid, contaminate our water supply or cripple the banks. In America, talk is of a possible “cyber Pearl Harbour”.

The regional picture is equally poor. Research published by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS), which included 121 Midlands businesses, paints a gloomy picture of security breaches.

The 2013 Information Security Breaches Survey said: “Fifty per cent of companies in the region admitted that their systems had been infected by viruses or malicious software. One in four (25 per cent) businesses in the region had experienced theft or fraud involving the use of computers.”

The “good guys” are fighting back, however, and many of them are based in the West Midlands in Malvern, which is the home of some of Britain’s best cyber experts - the Government’s radar technology was moved there in the Second World War, while QinetiQ, the defence and technology company borne out of the Government’s former science and research facilities, has a major presence in the town.

The area encompassing Cheltenham, Hereford and Malvern has been dubbed “Cyber Valley”. It is an expanding sector that Worcestershire Local Enterprise Partnership (WLEP) is keen to encourage.

To that end it recently sponsored Malvern Cyber Security Cluster, a collection of around 40 small cyber security firms, many started up by ex-QinetiQ employees, to attend the Infosecurity event in London’s Earls Court, billed as Europe’s most important gathering of cyber security experts.

Cluster members co-operate on a range of initiatives grow their businesses, share best practice and improve cyber security.

They include 3SDL, which operates in the aerospace, defence and security sectors, Advent IM, an independent information security and physical security consultancy, software house Borwell, C2B2, specialists in the Java middleware technologies used to acquire, store and analyse cyber scale data, Deep Secure, a software specialist with a 30-year technology track record helping organisations in defence, security, private and public sectors to securely share information, IASME, which has developed a cyber security management standard and guidance for SMEs, Cheltenham-based SpheriCore, which provides expertise in the management and security of information, communications and intelligence systems, Titania, a developer of network security and compliance auditing software which supplies products to global organisations and government agencies in over 40 countries and Zybert Computing, data security solutions for small organisations, offering the likes of remote access, backup, disaster recovery, file, email and database archiving, document storage, transport and verification, and secure cloud services.

The Malvern Cyber Security Cluster is also working with the Government on a variety of important projects.

One is a research unit to test the vulnerability of computer security systems at small businesses. The so-called “dirty lab” has been part-funded by the state and is designed to simulate attacks from hackers and test measures against viruses in a secure environment.

The Government has also been looking to recruit cyber security experts - to be called on during times of national emergency. Many are boffins and ex-civil servants working in the private sector and earmarked to help out in a crisis, a kind of cyber Home Guard.

Peter Pawsey, Worcestershire LEP chairman, said: “We are very fortunate there is so much cyber security expertise in the Malvern area.

“Worcestershire is the home to QinetiQ in Malvern, which has given birth to a number of spin-out companies and local people with cyber expertise.”

Many of the small cyber security companies start out in the Wyche Innovation Centre, which is run by entrepreneurs, houses more than 25 micro businesses and is perched high on the Malvern Hills.

The larger Malvern Hills Science Park has been positioned as grow-on space for many of the micro companies in Malvern. Mr Pawsey highlighted how, during April, the Science Park was given the green light to expand further, creating 25,000 sq ft of office space and potentially 150 jobs.

Malvern Hills District Council gave the multimillion-pound scheme planning consent and the Phase Four development was also backed by Worcestershire County Council.

An economic impact assessment has estimated that Phase Four will generate an extra £1.3 million to £2 million annually for the local economy. The park is already home to 23 businesses with more than 300 staff. Work is expected to start on the scheme at the end of this year.

“It is fantastic news and something we were pushing for strongly,” said Mr Pawsey. “We have a vital and emerging cyber security sector with the potential to embed itself across Worcestershire.

“The sector has the ability to harness growth across boundaries into neighbouring LEPs, especially the Marches, with its military history and the current focus on Hereford Enterprise Zone and Gloucestershire with GCHQ. These are truly exciting times.”