Pierluigi Paganini February 13, 2017

Britain’s security has been threatened by 188 major cyber attacks in the last three months, according to the head of the National Cyber Security Centre.

According to the head of the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), the UK government suffered at least 188 major cyber attacks in the past three months.

Ciaran Martin, former GCHQ cybersecurity chief, told The Sunday Times that the attacks are mostly from China and Russia.

The attacks threatened national security, nation-state actors conducted cyber espionage campaigns aimed to “extract information on UK government policy on anything from energy to diplomacy to information on a particular sector.”

“Britain is being hit by 60 significant cyber-attacks a month, including attempts by Russian state-sponsored hackers to steal defence and foreign policy secrets from government departments, the new cyber-security chief has revealed.” reported the told The Sunday Times

“In his first key interview, Ciaran Martin, head of GCHQ’s new National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), warned there had been a “step change” in Russia’s online aggression against the West as well as more attacks on “soft targets” such as local councils and charities to steal personal data, and universities to steal research secrets.”

Martin confirmed that the UK suffered state-sponsored attacks similar to those that targeted the Democratic National Committee in the 2016 Presidential Election.

UK authorities highlighted “a step-change in Russian aggression in cyber space” across the years.

“Part of that step change has been a series of attacks on political institutions, political parties, parliamentary organizations and that’s all very well evidenced by our international partners and widely accepted,” he said.

The National Cyber Security Centre had blocked 34,550 “potential attacks” on UK entities over the past six months.

“Meanwhile, Chancellor Phillip Hammond – a former defence and foreign secretary – said the NCSC had blocked 34,550 “potential attacks” on government departments and members of the public in the last six months – a rate of about 200 a day.” reported the BBC.

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Pierluigi Paganini

(Security Affairs – National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), cyber espionage)