NCSC tackled record number of cyber-attacks during past year

Ransomware became 'the most significant cyber threat facing the UK this year', NCSC states in its annual review

The National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) dealt with a record number of cyber-attacks over the past year, it has revealed in its annual review.

In total, 777 cyber incidents were tackled over the past year, up from 723 in the previous year, with the NCSC linking a number of these incidents to Russia and China.

Ransomware became "the most significant cyber threat facing the UK this year", the review said, which is "due to the likely impact of a successful attack on essential services or critical national infrastructure".

"One of the trends that the NCSC has seen over the last year was a worrying growth in criminal groups using ransomware to extort organisations," Lindy Cameron, the National Cyber Security Centre's CEO, said.

"In my view it is now the most immediate cyber security threat to UK businesses and one that I think should be higher on the boardroom agenda."

Healthcare and coronavirus research were a prime target for attacks, with around 20 per cent of the organisations the agency had to support being linked to the sector, including hospitals and research centres.

That included helping the University of Oxford's Covid-19 vaccine researchers "protect themselves from an attempted ransomware attempt" which the NCSC claims had the "potential to cause significant disruption to the UK's pandemic response".

How China evolves in the next decade will "probably be the single biggest driver of the UK's future cyber security", the NCSC added.

"The past year saw the cyber-attack on Microsoft, linked to a Chinese state-backed threat actor, and the SolarWinds attack, attributed to Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service - two of the most serious global cyber incidents we've seen in recent years," Sir Jeremy Fleming, director of GCHQ, said.

"In the UK there was an increase in the scale and severity of ransomware attacks, targeting all sectors from businesses to public services.

"Cyber criminals are still exploiting the pandemic, while hostile states shifted their cyber operations to steal vaccine and medical research."