Gangs hack for data in cyber attacks on NHS

Vaccine trials a target, says GCHQ chief

CRIMINALS HAVE been attempting to access data linked to the UK’s response to the coronavirus pandemic by targeting the NHS in a wave of cyber attacks, the director of GCHQ has revealed.

Jeremy Fleming confirmed GCHQ’s cyber-security arm, the National Cyber Security Centre, had been supporting the health sector after it was targeted by hackers.

He said although the attacks were no more sophisticated than previous attempts, there were clear efforts being made to access sensitive data linked to the UK’s response to the pandemic, such as vaccine research.

He said: “The reality is that we are seeing attacks on the health infrastructure. We do know that, whether it’s states or criminals, they are going after things which are sensitive to us in this regard.

“So it’s a high priority for us to protect the health sector, protect, particularly, the race to acquire a vaccine, and there has been quite a lot of publicity around all of that.

“They’re not using particularly different techniques to do it. They’re still looking for pretty basic vulnerabilities in our cybersecurity. They’ll still try and use lures to get people to click on the wrong thing or will look for vulnerabilities where people aren’t backing up properly or where

they’ve got basic passwords and so on.

“There is a lot of low-hanging fruit, still, in cyber-security.

“If we all did some of these basic things, then even quite sophisticated

Jeremy Fleming, director of GCHQ, speaking last night. state actors would find it hard to come after us.”

He also warned that criminals had seen the Covid-19 outbreak as an opportunity, using fear around the pandemic to scare or trick people into sharing personal information.

He told Cheltenham Science Festival last night: “We’ve been helping government and helping policing and the National Crime Agency in particular cope with some of the spikes we’ve seen in serious and organised crime.

“As it is the case that hostile states can seek to do us harm, cyber criminals have spotted the opportunity from the pandemic.

“We’ve seen them using Covidrelated tactics as lures to try and defraud people, to mount their forms of criminality and cause people harm.”

Mr Fleming revealed GCHQ had moved in to support the healthcare industry early in the pandemic for multiple reasons, including offering cyber-security support for the NHS contact-tracing app, which remains in development.

Questions have been raised about the security of the app but Mr Fleming said “privacy and data protection have been absolutely at the heart” of its development.

Asked about the increase in time people were spending with digital devices during lockdown, the GCHQ director said it was right to embrace technology but the public needed to remember good cyber-security practice to stay safe.

They are going after things which are sensitive to us.