The new head of the UK’s National Cyber Security Center warns of the major risks posed to the country’s infrastructure by China, Iran and Russia.
UK is downplaying the seriousness of the incident cyber threats The director of the National Cyber Security Center (NCSC) warns of the threat from hostile states and criminal gangs. British cyber security chief Richard Horne It will encourage collective action against “a range of increasingly complex threats” Enemies who want Britain to cause “maximum confusion and destruction” in his first major speech in office on Tuesday.
Horne sees China, Russia and Iran as threats in particular On behalf of the United Kingdom, according to excerpts from his speech at the NCSC headquarters in London. “We can see how cyberattacks are becoming increasingly important to Russian actors,” Horne said, adding that China is “a highly sophisticated cyber actor with a growing ambition to project its influence beyond its borders.”
NCSC’s annual review shows that: Significant increase in “serious” cyber incidents, and the agency responded to 430 incidents between September and August this year, compared to 371 in the previous 12 months. The NCSC said 12 of these incidents were at the “upper end of the scale”, a marked increase compared to four similar cases the previous year. In the briefing regarding Horne’s speech, it was said:‘Critical infrastructure’ among targets of cyber attacks in UKsupply chains, the public sector and our economy at large.
enemy states
In June, UK data services provider Synnovis (which manages blood tests) The country’s National Health Service, NHS) was the target of a ransomware attack in which criminal gangs seized sensitive data online and demanded ransom payments to return it. The Russian Qilin group is believed to be behind the incidentThe stolen patient data was published on the dark web as well as on the group’s Telegram channel.
Horne is expected to say: “The attack on Synnovis revealed how dependent we are on technology having access to health services. “There is no room for complacency about the seriousness of government threats or the volume of threat posed by cybercriminals,” the NCSC annual review says: Conflicts have occurred over the past 12 months, fueling a volatile threat environmentThey include Russia’s use of destructive malware against Ukrainian targets and attempts to interfere with NATO countries’ systems.
Additionally, Chinese state actors, such as the hacking group Volt Typhoon, are said to be responsible for attacks on the UK’s democratic institutions. Volt Typhoon believed to be guilty of attacks on UK election commission and to parliamentarians’ emails. The group is also currently under investigation in the United States for alleged attacks on commercial telecommunications infrastructure.
The NCSC report mentions Iran and North Korea as potential threats, and Pyongyang continues to “prioritize revenue to evade sanctions and gather intelligence on its cyber activities.” Horne’s speech comes after authorities in Europe last month raised the alarm over unexplained attacks on two telecommunications cables in the Baltic Sea.
Last week, James Appathurai, NATO’s chief expert on cyber and hybrid threats, said the attacks on the cables were part of a broader increase in hybrid attacks by Russia in Europe. Moscow has repeatedly denied responsibility for such attacks.
