News of digital hacks causing huge information risks may well be hitting the headlines constantly, but that doesn’t mean the UK is employing the cyber security consulting services needed ready to deal with it.
That’s the message from the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), whose CEO Ciaran Martin said that they are anticipating a large scale attack in the near future.
Since the creation of the NCSC two years ago, it has had to deal with an average of ten threats per day, but Martin is clear that a higher risk attack is on the horizon. According to Alphr, the belief is that the majority of these attacks are conducted by state-sponsored hacker groups, but that these groups are the most direct risk to the UK’s cyber security.
“I remain in little doubt we will be tested to the full, as a centre, and as a nation, by a major incident at some point in the years ahead,” says Martin, “what we would call a Category 1 attack.”
While the UK has had some larger incidents, it has managed to avoid a Category 1 attack, which is deemed the most serious of all attacks, according to the six-level categorisation system.
An example of a so-called Category 1 attack is the likes of alleged interference in the US Elections by Russian state-sponsored hackers, while it is categorised by causing server social or economic impact, or even causing a loss of life.
Despite this, Martin does believe that the UK is improving its cyber security every day.
