UK will hit back at Russia’s hackers

BRITAIN is developing technology to ‘retaliate in kind’ if Russia launches cyber attacks aimed at crippling our power supplies, Philip Hammond said yesterday.

In a chilling warning, the Chancellor said ‘rogue states’ had acquired the ability to launch ‘destructive’ cyber attacks against Britain that ‘threaten the security of critical national infrastructure’.

Key targets include power supplies, air traffic control systems, banks and hospitals.

Setting out his £1.9billion cyber security strategy, Mr Hammond said Britain needed to step up its defences and develop the ability to ‘strike back’ to deter attacks.

He added: ‘If we do not have the ability to respond in cyberspace to an attack which takes down our power networks, leaving us in darkness, or hits our air traffic control system, grounding our planes, we would be left with the impossible choice of turning the other cheek and ignoring the devastating consequences or resorting to a military response.’

The new cyber security strategy includes sweeping plans to ‘harden’ Britain’s defences against attack. It identifies five main groups who pose a threat: Organised cyber criminals, who are mainly based in Russia but also emerging in Africa, Hostile states such as North Korea, Terrorists, who are judged to have ‘low’ capability in the area, ‘Hacktivist’ groups of hackers who target individual corporations, and ÷ So-called ‘script kiddies’ – lone teenagers who carry out amateur hacking.

The new strategy gives few details of the kind of capability the Government is looking to develop to counter rogue states.

But it says the new ‘offensive’ technology will include ‘the full spectrum of capabilities… to deter adversaries and deny them opportunities to attack us.’ It also says the armed forces will be prepared to ‘assist in the event of a significant national cyber attack’.

Company chief executives are to be given advice on protecting older IT systems which are seen as easy prey by hackers.

The initiative will also fund the recruitment of 50 ‘specialist cyber crime investigators’ who will be deployed to ‘pursue the most serious incidents of cyber crime at a national and international level’.

Mr Hammond said cyber security could also be put on the school curriculum to encourage greater awareness and encourage youngsters to gain expertise in the area.

The Chancellor did not mention Russia by name. But his intervention came as MI5 chief Andrew Parker revealed that Britain is facing repeated cyber attacks from Russia.

Mr Parker said: ‘Russia, these days, uses a whole range of its state organs and powers to push its foreign policy abroad in increasingly aggressive ways and so we all see lots of evidence of the way Russia uses its military, the way it uses information campaigns, propaganda, espionage, cyber attacks (and) subversion to achieve its foreign policy aims.

‘Russia is at work through its intelligence services right across Europe, elsewhere in the world and in the UK today.

‘It’s MI5’s job to find and get in the way of the worst of that.’

Russia yesterday denied launching cyber attacks against Britain.