One of the government's leading IT security officials has said trusted computing will play a significant role within the forthcoming cyber security strategy.

Owen Pengelly, deputy director of policy at the Office for Cyber Security and Information Assurance in the Cabinet Office, said the strategy will involve four key elements and that trusted computing technology is integral to at least three.

The technology, developed by companies within the Trusted Computing Group, is installed on laptops and servers and uses cryptography to authenticate devices, encrypt data and verify that only authorised code runs on a system.