Britain’s Critical Infrastructure is vulnerable to cyber attacks says Prof Paul Theron, a member of NATO’s cybersecurity research group which also offers security guidance to the European Commission.
Theron offered his insight based on the fact that Britain has a shortage for 50k Cybersecurity specialists expected to extend to the upcoming decade. The Top Nato Advisor warned the Theresa May’s government to bolster the nation’s security defenses against what he calls a now “ Constant” barrage of sophisticated attacks from state-sponsored actors and hacking groups.
Prof. Paul feels that the whole of the critical infrastructure including power stations, electricity networks, and other essential systems are prone to cyber attacks launched by adversaries like Russia and China.
The remarks come after an article was published in The Sunday Telegraph saying Russia’s GRU launched a cyber attack on the UK’s National Grid on June 8th, 2017 which happened to the day of the general elections.
“Maybe the plan was to hit the nation with a blackout in order to block the election event and the coverage to put the nation’s populace in dark about the developments happening in the political world”, said Prof Paul Theron.
As the current industrial digital infrastructure is designed and built in the 70’s and 80’s- an era before cybersecurity was a concern, the government to take adequate steps to bolster the current line of defenses. Otherwise, it could spell a doomsday for the entire nation’s populace, said Prof. Theron.
Note- Theron is an ex-head of France’s biggest defense company Cyber Resilience at Thales and he is known to lecture at Cranfield University on Cyber Security.
Concluding his briefing, Theron said that Britain was not alone in facing the cyber skills shortage. The think tank estimates that there could be a shortage of 350,000 professionals in EU alone and over two million on a worldwide note.
