Britain Building Cyber Forces to Attack ISIS

British spies are building elite cyber offensive forces to strike at Islamic State fighters, hackers and hostile powers, Chancellor George Osborne said recently after warning militants wanted to launch deadly digital attacks.

Islamic State was trying to develop the capability to attack British infrastructure such as hospitals, power networks and air traffic control systems with potentially lethal consequences, Osborne said.

In response, Britain will bolster spending on cyber defences, simplify its state cyber structures and build its own offensive cyber capability to attack adversaries.

"We will defend ourselves. But we will also take the fight to you," Osborne, Britain's second most powerful politician after Prime Minister David Cameron, said in a speech at Britain's GCHQ eavesdropping agency.
"We are building our own offensive cyber capability – a dedicated ability to counter-attack in cyberspace. When we talk about tackling (Islamic State), that means tackling their cyber threat as well as their guns, bombs and knives."

Britain's new cyber attack forces will be run jointly between GCHQ and the Defence Ministry and will target individual hackers, criminal gangs, militant groups and hostile powers, using a "full spectrum" of actions, Osborne said.

GCHQ traces its history back to World War One signals intelligence with Winston Churchill as its founder and once reported to the MI6 foreign intelligence service but has since gained significant influence as one of the world's pre-eminent eavesdropping agencies.

One of the most secret spy agencies in the world, its existence was only officially recognised legally by Britain in the 1990s.

After the Paris attacks, which killed at least 129 people and were claimed by Islamic State, Britain said it would boost staff at its domestic MI5 security service, MI6 and GCHQ by about 15 percent.

Osborne said public spending on cyber security would be almost doubled to a total of 1.9 billion pounds ($2.9 billion) over the period to 2020, saying the decision to ramp up cyber defence funding had been taken before Friday's bloodshed in Paris.

Islamic State was already using the Internet for propaganda, to radicalise people and for planning purposes, he added, "They have not been able to use it to kill people yet by attacking our infrastructure through cyber attack," he said. "But we know they want it and are doing their best to build it.

GCHQ was currently monitoring cyber threats against 450 companies in aerospace, finance defence, energy and telecoms sectors, while the number of cyber national security incidents had doubled to 200 a month since last year, he said.

A new national cyber security plan drawn up by the government would feature a dedicated force to ensure faster and more effective responses to major online attacks. The force would be based at GCHQ in Cheltenham, southwest England.

Other elements of the plan included possible cooperation between internet service providers, with help from the government, to fend off malware attacks and block bad addresses used against British internet users, as well as a new institute to train coders, Osborne said.

British broadband provider TalkTalk suffered a cyber attack in October, which affected 157,000 customers. In November, Britain and US authorities carried out a drill with leading banks to test their response to a cyber incident in the financial sector.

"The experience in the last month of TalkTalk shows how cyber attack can suddenly go from a theoretical risk to a massive business cost," Osborne said.

Reuters:

 

« Anonymous Acts on Cyber War Threat
Restricting Encryption Wouldn’t Stop Paris-Style Attacks »

CyberSecurity Jobsite
Check Point

Directory of Suppliers

XYPRO Technology

XYPRO Technology

XYPRO is the market leader in HPE Non-Stop Security, Risk Management and Compliance.

TÜV SÜD Academy UK

TÜV SÜD Academy UK

TÜV SÜD offers expert-led cybersecurity training to help organisations safeguard their operations and data.

BackupVault

BackupVault

BackupVault is a leading provider of automatic cloud backup and critical data protection against ransomware, insider attacks and hackers for businesses and organisations worldwide.

DigitalStakeout

DigitalStakeout

DigitalStakeout enables cyber security professionals to reduce cyber risk to their organization with proactive security solutions, providing immediate improvement in security posture and ROI.

Syxsense

Syxsense

Syxsense brings together endpoint management and security for greater efficiency and collaboration between IT management and security teams.

Huawei

Huawei

Huawei is a leading global ICT solutions provider. with end-to-end capabilities across the carrier networks, enterprise, consumer, and cloud computing fields.

International Conference on Information Systems Security & Privacy (ICISSP)

International Conference on Information Systems Security & Privacy (ICISSP)

The ICISSP event is a meeting point for researchers and practitioners to address security and privacy challenges concerning information systems.

Fastpath Solutions

Fastpath Solutions

Fastpath deliver software solutions that enable you to take control of your security, compliance and risk management initiatives.

Sysorex Government Services

Sysorex Government Services

Sysorex Government Services helps customers meet their strategic missions by providing secure, optimized IT solutions that allow them to perform more efficiently and effectively.

Armis

Armis

Armis offers the markets leading asset intelligence platform designed to address the new threat landscape that connected devices create.

Ksmartech

Ksmartech

Ksmartech provide services related to security and authentication in all areas where the connection of people to objects, and objects and objects is necessary.

Krypsis

Krypsis

Krypsys is an information security company with a focus on helping you defend your information and data against emerging security threats.

Speedinvest

Speedinvest

Speedinvest is one of Europe’s most active early-stage investors with a focus on Deep Tech, Fintech, Industrial Tech, Network Effects, and Digital Health.

Regulativ.ai

Regulativ.ai

Regulativ.ai is an innovative and comprehensive platform, driven by AI, to address the regulatory and compliance needs of Cyber Security Regulatory compliance and reporting.

Alias

Alias

Alias (formerly Alias Forensics) provide penetration testing, vulnerability assessments, incident response and security consulting services.

Quad9 Foundation

Quad9 Foundation

Quad9 is a free security solution that uses DNS to protect your system against the most common cyber threats. It improves your system's performance, plus, it preserves and protects your privacy.

Tailscale

Tailscale

Tailscale is a VPN service that makes the devices and applications you own accessible anywhere in the world, securely and effortlessly.

Cyber Unicorns

Cyber Unicorns

Cyber Unicorns is a cyber security consultancy created to help drive cyber security outcomes in the small to medium-sized business space.

CelcomDigi

CelcomDigi

CelcomDigi aspire to be Malaysia’s top Telco-Tech company, transforming beyond core connectivity to lead digitalization and innovation as part of nation-building.

Redblock

Redblock

Redblock's mission is to eliminate the drudgery and repetitive 'eye on the glass' work done by Security Teams.

Aurva

Aurva

Aurva are a team of engineers, product thinkers, and security minds who believe that data security should be simple, powerful, and built for speed.