Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
‘Damaging’ North Korean cyber attacks to hit UK
Top spook: hacks will get worse
NORTH Korea will launch more cyber attacks on Britain next year, the UK’S former chief spook has warned.
The rogue state has already been blamed for the Wannacry ransomware incident that crippled the NHS in May. And Robert Hannigan, ex-director of GCHQ, is predicting further “collateral damage” from more aggressive “state-directed” attacks in 2018.
UK Security Minister Ben Wallace last month blamed Kim Jong-un for Wannacry, which saw hackers demand cash to unlock data. And last week, Mr Hannigan told a cyber security summit in Mayfair, Central London: “Wannacry was a reasonably sophisticated tool, used rather ineptly. They will learn from that.
“The technical sophistication of the threats is going to get worse. We’ll see a greater scale of
DONALD Trump has branded North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, 33, “short and fat”.
After Kim’s foreign ministry called him a “dotard”, the US President, 71, tweeted: “Why would Kim Jong-un insult me by calling me old? I would NEVER call him “short and fat”. attacks.” Mr Hannigan, who quit as GCHQ chief in January, said he is concerned about the growing “overlap of state and crime”.
He warned that these type of hacks will become “more destructive” and result in more damage, describing the 20,000 medical appointments cancelled in the wake of Wannacry as “collateral casualties”. He also warned of an IS attack on Britain.
He said: “Groups like ISIL love the idea of a destructive attack. They are a very long way from having the capability. But it is bound to happen at some stage.”