We could call in Army to take on our cyber enemies, says Fallon
A CYBER attack against Britain could trigger a full-scale war with a response by the Army, Navy or RAF, the Defence Secretary said yesterday.
Sir Michael Fallon said warplanes, ships and soldiers could hunt down ‘cyber strikers’ who endanger the country and its citizens by launching online assaults.
Speaking in the wake of a ‘sustained and determined’ attack on Parliament, he said the UK would boost its ability to combat the threat and ensure enemies both offline and online have ‘nowhere to hide’.
He revealed that the UK is now carrying out offensive cyber warfare routinely in the battle against Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.
‘We are using our rising budget to invest in full spectrum capability... signalling to potential cyber strikes that the price of an online attack could invite a response from any domain – air, land, sea or cyberspace,’ he said.
He added that the ‘ offensive cyber’ was an integral part of the nation’s weaponry. Speaking at the Chatham House foreign affairs think- tank, he said: ‘We now have the skills to expose cyber criminals, to hunt them down, and to prosecute them. To respond in kind to any assault at a time of our choosing.’
Sir Michael said the UK had pressed Nato to be clear that a cyber attack could be just as dangerous as a physical one and could there- fore warrant an Article 5 response. That covers the principle of collective self-defence, meaning an attack against one Nato member would be considered an attack against them all.
The Defence Secretary said that if the hackers who carried out the attacks on Parliament last Friday and the NHS last month could be identified then ‘as far as we can’ they should be pros- ecuted. But he added that a threat could come from all kinds of sources – from terrorists to nation states – and the response may need to be differentiated.
‘There clearly has to be a point at which they cross a certain threshold, endangering the state itself, the daily existence of its people,’ he said. ‘That is why we have pressed for Nato to be clear that a cyber attack can be just as threatening as any other kind of physical attack, when you are getting into the territory of Article 5.’
Sir Michael revealed yesterday that Britain had been carrying out cyber warfare on IS in its stronghold of Raqqa, in Syria. It had also disabled the regime’s computer systems in the Iraqi city of Mosul, weakening its capacity to resist the Iraqi forces.
Former GCHQ chief Robert Hannigan yesterday described the internet as a ‘free gift’ for terrorists and hackers who want to cause Britain harm. He told a conference that it ‘was not designed with security in mind’, which meant governments have been left trying to ‘retrofit’ defensive measures.
‘We have the skills to hunt them down’