The UK is facing a growing threat of cyber attacks, with the scale of the danger still being underestimated, according to Richard Horn, the head of the National Cybersecurity Center (NCSC). Speaking at a recent event, Horn highlighted that hackers and hostile states are becoming more active, sophisticated, and destructive.
NCSC reported a significant increase in serious cyber incidents over the past year, rising from 371 to 430. Of these incidents, 12 were deemed particularly dangerous, a three-fold increase from the previous year. Many of the attacks are linked to ransomware programs that lock systems and demand payment.
Out of the total incidents, 347 involved data breaches, and there were 20 ransomware attacks. NCSC issued 542 individual alerts to organizations about incidents and provided recommendations for prevention, more than double the number of alerts in 2020.
The review by NCSC highlighted that ransomware attacks pose a direct threat to critical infrastructure such as energy, transportation, water supply, healthcare, and telecommunications.
The report also mentioned advanced cyber attacks originating from China, like those from the Chinese hacking group Volt Typhone. There have been cases in the UK where databases and email accounts of lawmakers were compromised.
Recent attacks on the British Library and the Synnovis medical company underscored the importance of cyber resilience in daily life, with one attack limiting access to information and the other disrupting medical services, particularly blood tests. Apart from China, Iran and North Korea are also identified as threats. Iran uses cyber attacks to target critical infrastructure, while North Korea focuses on cryptocurrency theft and defense-related data exploitation.
The NCSC review also warned about the rising risk of hackers leveraging artificial intelligence to orchestrate more sophisticated cyber attacks. Horn stressed the need to recognize the seriousness of the threat to the UK and urged companies and government bodies to bolster their cybersecurity defenses to safeguard infrastructure, economy, and key sectors.