"Severity of the risk facing the UK is being widely underestimated.”
The cyber risks that the UK is facing are “widely underestimated.”
In a speech due to be given today by National Cybersecurity Centre (NCSC) head Richard Horne, ahead of the launch of the agency’s annual report, he will warning that Britain and its allies are competing in a high-stakes contest for cyberspace.
Horne, who recently began his role as head of the NCSC, will say today that hostile activity in UK cyberspace has increased in frequency, sophistication and intensity, and attackers are seeking to cause maximum disruption and destruction.
Horne will say: “Last week, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster warned about the aggression and recklessness of cyber activity we see coming from Russia.
“With our partners, including at the NPSA, we can see how cyber-attacks are increasingly important to Russian actors, along with sabotage threats to physical security, which the director general of MI5 spoke about recently.
“All the while, China remains a highly sophisticated cyber actor, with increasing ambition to project its influence beyond its borders.”
Severity of the risk
However despite all this, he will say that “we believe the severity of the risk facing the UK is being widely underestimated.”
He will also say that there is no room for complacency about the severity of state-led threats or the volume of the threat posed by cyber-criminals, and that the defence and resilience of critical infrastructure, supply chains, the public sector and our wider economy must improve.
“In the past year, we have seen crippling attacks against institutions that have brought home the true price tag of cyber incidents,” Horne will say.
“The attack against Synnovis showed us how dependent we are on technology for accessing our health services. The attack against the British Library reminded us that we’re reliant on technology for our access to knowledge.
“What these and other incidents show is how entwined technology is with our lives and that cyber-attacks have human costs.”
Written by
Dan Raywood
Senior Editor
SC Media UK
Dan Raywood is a B2B journalist with more than 20 years of experience, including covering cybersecurity for the past 16 years. He has extensively covered topics from Advanced Persistent Threats and nation-state hackers to major data breaches and regulatory changes.
He has spoken at events including 44CON, Infosecurity Europe, RANT Conference, BSides Scotland, Steelcon and ESET Security Days.
Outside work, Dan enjoys supporting Tottenham Hotspur, managing mischievous cats, and sampling craft beers.
