The British government aims at improving its offensive cyber capability

Britain’s most senior cyber general declared that the UK has implemented an advanced offensive cyberwar capability that could destroy its enemies.

Gen Sir Patrick Sanders, the UK’s strategic command chief, announced that that the UK has implemented an advanced offensive cyberwar capability that could potentially “degrade, disrupt and destroy” the critical infrastructure of its adversaries.

Boris Johnson tasked Gen Sanders to enhance both defensive and offensive cyber capabilities to ensure Britain is a “leading, full-spectrum cyber power.”

Sanders explained that its cyber army was supported by the GCHQ intelligence agency to deliver offensive cyber capabilities.

“[offensive cyber capability could] degrade, disrupt and even destroy critical capabilities and infrastructure of those who would do us harm, ranging from strategic to tactical targets” both in isolation or alongside traditional military force.” Sanders confirmed.

Experts don’t exclude that Boris Johnson will order the creation of National Cyber Force, a special military cyber division that will work with local intelligence agencies as the US Cyber Command does in the US.

The news is not surprising for people working in the cyber security sector, the British military claims to have had an offensive cyber capability for a decade.

Intelligence experts pointed out that the British government already conducted offensive hacking operations, including the one that targeted the ISIS in 2017.

“Cyber operations are in part run from a control room near Corsham, near Chippenha m, the historical site of the secret nuclear bunker to which the British government could relocate in an emergency.” reported The Guardian.

Clearly the UK military is under incessant cyber attacks from multiple threat actors, Sanders said, the UK military was targeted by an average of 60 attacks that require human intervention to be mitigated.

“The binary distinction between war and peace as we have approached it no longer applies,” Gen Sanders concluded. “Our adversaries are applying all means to gain advantage below the threshold of war and are accruing advantage insidiously and inevitably.”

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Pierluigi Paganini

(SecurityAffairs – hacking, UK)

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Pierluigi Paganini

Pierluigi Paganini is member of the ENISA (European Union Agency for Network and Information Security) Threat Landscape Stakeholder Group and Cyber G7 Group, he is also a Security Evangelist, Security Analyst and Freelance Writer. Editor-in-Chief at "Cyber Defense Magazine", Pierluigi is a cyber security expert with over 20 years experience in the field, he is Certified Ethical Hacker at EC Council in London. The passion for writing and a strong belief that security is founded on sharing and awareness led Pierluigi to find the security blog "Security Affairs" recently named a Top National Security Resource for US. Pierluigi is a member of the "The Hacker News" team and he is a writer for some major publications in the field such as Cyber War Zone, ICTTF, Infosec Island, Infosec Institute, The Hacker News Magazine and for many other Security magazines. Author of the Books "The Deep Dark Web" and “Digital Virtual Currency and Bitcoin”.