UK Businesses are on the frontline of the country’s cyber defences and must help defend against groups bent on destroying critical infrastructure, a minister will warn on Wednesday.
The latest cyber security threat comes from hackers linked to Russia and can be compared to the Wagner paramilitary organisation, according to Oliver Dowden.
These groups are “ideologically motivated, rather than financially motivated,” and have begun to target Britain this year, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster will tell the CyberUK conference in Belfast.
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Their main aim, he will add, is “to disrupt or destroy” and they are less likely to show the same level of restraint as national actors – making the situation “particularly concerning”.
In a sign of the growing danger, the National Cyber Security Centre is issuing an official threat notice to operators to help protect the country.
Mr Dowden, who is also Secretary of State for National Investment Security, will tell the conference he is appealing to “companies in charge of keeping our country running, of keeping the lights on… our shared prosperity depends on them taking their own security seriously.
“A bricks-and-mortar business wouldn’t survive if it left the back door open to criminals every night. Equally in today’s world, businesses can’t afford… to leave their digital back door open to cyber crooks and hackers.”
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Mr Dowden will announce measures that will encourage certain businesses “on the front line of our cyber defences” to strengthen their security and boost the economy.
The plans will also include proposals to bolster the government’s ability to hold operators of critical infrastructure to account.
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These will include setting “specific and ambitious cyber resilience targets” for all critical national infrastructure sectors to meet by 2025.
Ministers will also try to bring all private sector businesses working in critical national infrastructure within the scope of cyber resilience regulations.