UK facing increasing cyber attacks

The British government and industry computer systems are facing a disturbing number of cyber attacks, including a recent serious assault on the Foreign Offices network, the head of Britains communications spy agency said on Monday.The Director of the Government Communications Headquarters, Iain Lobban, according to Reuters, said the attacks posed a threat to Britains economic well-being.The volume of e-crime and attacks on government and industry systems continue to be disturbing, Lobban wrote in an article for the Times newspaper.I can attest to attempts to steal British ideas and designs - in the IT, technology, defence, engineering and energy sectors as well as other industries - to gain commercial advantage or to profit from secret knowledge of contractual arrangements, he added.Lobbans GCHQ agency, a big eavesdropping operation similar to the National Security Agency in the United States, handles operations such as intelligence-gathering and code-busting and is at the forefront of Britains cyber defenses.Lobban rarely makes public comments, and his article comes a year after he gave a speech, saying countries were using cyber warfare techniques to attack each other.He repeated his message that concerted attacks were being waged on the government as well as companies.We are also aware of similar techniques being employed to try to acquire sensitive information from British government computer systems, including one significant (but unsuccessful) attempt on the Foreign Office and other government departments this summer, he wrote.Politicians and spy chiefs around the world have increasingly been warning about growing cyber threats from other countries and from organised criminals.
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