Fighting cybercrime must be a priority
The first job of a government is to protect the life, liberty and property of its citizens. The nature of the threat to public order changes over time but that fundamental duty never does. The ransomware attack on the NHS is, therefore, an indictment of a state that is not doing its job properly. Britain has a cybercrime problem; the next government must make tackling this an absolute priority.
After decades of crime generally falling, key categories are on the rise again. Crude offences such as gun and knife attacks are up – but so are more sophisticated information technology felonies. The UK has seen a 55 per cent year-onyear increase in the value of fraud – topping £1.1 billion in 2016, a year in which cybercriminals attacked one in five British companies.
It is scandalous that vulnerabilities in the NHS, obvious for some time, were not addressed: Barts Health NHS trust, the largest in England, was hit by a previous cybercrime incident in January. Many NHS trusts have been using Windows XP, a system that was first rolled out in 2001 and that is no longer kept up to date. This is unacceptable. It is akin to putting the health of the country behind an old door with a rusty lock.
The country needs to know who was responsible: managers must face the consequences of failure, not pass the buck, as so often happens in the NHS. That this outrage should occur in the middle of an election also puts the onus on politicians to explain what they would do to combat the new generation of criminal activity. Labour has tried to put the Government on the spot over the attack, but, astonishingly, the draft Labour manifesto leaked last week made no mention of cybercrime at all. Instead, it placed an emphasis on spending, alleged discrimination and penal reform – an insight into the Left’s obsession with special pleading and its softness on crime. They have no grasp of the essential duties of government.
The Tories must not make that mistake. Their manifesto must detail how they will better defend public order in the age of the internet. Order is essential to liberty: it is only when the rules are properly enforced that the economy can grow. Disorder harms the weakest most, as those turned away for medical procedures in the wake of the NHS attack will confirm. Tackling cybercrime must be at the heart of the Conservative agenda.