Britain’s cybersecurity chief stated on Tuesday that the country needs to strengthen its resilience because it is underestimating the threat that hostile powers like China and Russia, as well as criminal gangs, pose online.
Richard Horne, who became head of the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) in October, used his first major speech to warn of “the aggression and recklessness of cyber activity we see coming from Russia.”
He also cautioned that China “remains a highly sophisticated cyber actor, with increasing ambition to project its influence beyond its borders” as his agency unveiled its latest annual review.
“Hostile activity in UK cyberspace has increased in frequency, sophistication, and intensity,” Horne said, with online actors increasingly targeting technology used by people daily “to cause maximum disruption and destruction.”
“We believe the severity of the risk facing the UK is being widely underestimated,” he added.
“There is no room for complacency about the severity of state-led threats or the volume of the threat posed by cybercriminals.”
“The defence and resilience of critical infrastructure, supply chains, the public sector, and our wider economy must improve.”
The NCSC, housed within GCHQ, the top-secret electronic eavesdropping agency, has issued numerous warnings about the increasing dangers posed by cyberthreats.
In recent years, the UK has been the victim of numerous disruptive cyberattacks that have targeted the British Library, some of the largest hospitals in the country, and the transit system in London.
Some of them are thought to be the result of hostile states.
“What has struck me more forcefully than anything else since taking the helm at the NCSC is the clearly widening gap between the exposure and threat we face and the defences that are in place,” Horne said.
“We all need to increase the pace we are working at to keep ahead of our adversaries.”
Horne singled out Moscow and Beijing, noting that cyberattacks were “increasingly important to Russian actors, along with sabotage threats to physical security.”
His comments follow a warning last week by Pat McFadden, a senior UK government minister whose portfolio includes national security, that Russia was “exceptionally aggressive and reckless in the cyber realm.”
The United States and the United Kingdom accused Russian intelligence agencies a year ago of waging a persistent cyber espionage campaign targeting prominent journalists, lawmakers, and non-governmental organizations.
However, the most recent charges coincide with heightened tensions between the West and Russia, as President Vladimir Putin caused anxiety last month by claiming that the war in Ukraine had the makings of a “global” battle.
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