BRITAIN is dangerously unprepared for a surge in cyber attacks, the country’s top cyber chief will warn today.
Richard Horne will use his first speech in the job to reveal a threefold rise in the most serious cyber attacks over the past year.
He will call for urgent action to close the “widening gap” between the UK’s defences and the escalating threats posed by hostile state actors, including Russia and China.
The head of GCHQ’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) will say: “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 to protect us.
“And what is equally clear to me is that we all need to increase the pace we are working at to keep ahead of our adversaries.”
Mr Horne will slam the “aggression and recklessness” of Russian cyber activity, warning of escalating attacks from Putin-linked groups and rogue operators.
He will also flag China’s growing ambition, calling Beijing a “highly sophisticated cyber actor” determined to expand its influence far beyond its borders.
The cyber chief will add: “And yet, despite all this, we believe the severity of the risk facing the UK is being widely underestimated.”
His comments will come at the launch of the National Cyber Security Centre’s (NCSC) annual review, which lays bare the alarming rise in cyber threats facing the UK.
In all, 2023-24 saw the NCSC receive 1,957 reports of cyber attacks, 430 of which needed support from the centre’s incident management team, up from 371 the previous year.
Of these incidents, 89 were nationally significant, 12 of which were at the top end of the scale and more severe in nature, a threefold increase on last year.
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