The UK is underestimating the severity of the online threat it faces from hostile states and criminal gangs, the country’s cybersecurity chief will warn.
Richard Horne, the head of GCHQ’s National Cyber Security Centre, will cite a trebling of “severe” incidents amid Russian “aggression and recklessness” and China’s “highly sophisticated” digital operations.
In his first major speech as the agency’s chief, Horne will say on Tuesday that hostile activity in UK cyberspace has increased in “frequency, sophistication and intensity” from enemies who want to cause maximum disruption and destruction.
In a speech at the NCSC’s London HQ, Horne, who took on the role in October, will point to “the aggression and recklessness of cyber-activity we see coming from Russia” and how “China remains a highly sophisticated cyber-actor, with increasing ambition to project its influence beyond its borders”.
“And yet, despite all this, we believe the severity of the risk facing the UK is being widely underestimated,” he will say.
One expert described the comments as a “klaxon” call to companies and public sector organisations to wake up to the scale of the cyber-threat facing the UK.
Horne will make the warning as the NCSC reveals a significant increase in serious cyberincidents over the past 12 months. Its annual review shows that the agency had responded to 430 incidents requiring its support between 1 September 2023 and 31 August 2024, compared with 371 in the previous 12 months.
It says that 12 of those attacks were at the “top end of the scale” and were “more severe in nature” – a trebling from the previous year.
“There is no room for complacency about the severity of state-led threats or the volume of the threat posed by cybercriminals,” Horne will say. “The defence and resilience of critical infrastructure, supply chains, the public sector and our wider economy must improve.”
Last week the Cabinet Office minister, Pat McFadden, warned that Russia “can turn the lights off for millions of people” with a cyber-attack.
Source: The Guardian