Latest news with #cyberattacks
The Independent
5 hours ago
- General
- The Independent
Stark warning as Britain targeted ‘daily' by Russia
Defence Secretary John Healey warned that Russia is conducting daily cyber attacks on the UK, part of approximately 90,000 assaults on Britain's defence systems linked to various states, necessitating readiness for potential real-world attacks. Healey stated that the size of the British army will not increase until at least 2029, while also appearing to confirm interest in purchasing fighter jets capable of firing tactical nuclear weapons. The UK and NATO are enhancing their deterrence and defence capabilities in response to growing Russian aggression, with preparations for war aimed at securing peace. Prime Minister Keir Starmer is set to unveil a 'radical blueprint' involving investments in cyber defences and drone technology, describing threats including the war in Europe and new nuclear risks. The strategic defence review, to be published on Monday, will likely warn of an 'immediate and pressing' threat from Russia and will integrate cyber experts on the front lines alongside regular forces.
Al Arabiya
5 hours ago
- Business
- Al Arabiya
UK to restore ‘war-fighting readiness' with new defense review
UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer said Sunday he will 'restore Britain's war-fighting readiness' as his government warned of 'growing' Russian aggression ahead of a major defense strategy review. 'We will restore Britain's war-fighting readiness as the central purpose of our armed forces,' Starmer wrote in The Sun daily, including by ramping up weapons production capacity. His government's Strategic Defense Review, due to be published Monday, will assess threats facing the UK, amid Russia's ongoing war in Ukraine and pressure from US President Donald Trump for NATO allies to bolster their own defenses. Starmer wrote that It will serve as 'a blueprint for strength and security for decades to come.' Defense Secretary John Healey warned of "growing Russian aggression,' including through "daily' cyberattacks on the UK's 'defense system.' 'We're in a world that is changing now... and it is a world of growing threats,' Healey told the BBC on Sunday. 'It's growing Russian aggression. It's those daily cyberattacks, it's new nuclear risks, and it's increasing tension in other parts of the world as well.' The defense review will recommend "creating an 'always on' munitions production capacity in the UK' allowing the scaling up of weapons production if needed, according to the Ministry of Defense. The document also urges the government to create conditions in industry to boost munition stockpiles. In February, Starmer committed to hiking defense spending to 2.5 percent of GDP by 2027, up from its current 2.3 percent, and to further raise it to three percent by around 2029. His Labour administration has said it would cut UK overseas aid to help fund the spending. New technologies On Saturday the government announced £1.5 billion ($2 billion) for building "at least six munitions and energetics factories' as well as procuring 7,000 domestically built long-range weapons. This investment -- which will see £6 billion spent on munitions under the current parliament -- would create and support 1,800 jobs. 'We are strengthening the UK's industrial base to better deter our adversaries and make the UK secure at home and strong abroad,'Healey said. The Ministry of Defense also pledged £1 billion for the creation of a 'cyber command' to help on the battlefield. The defense shake-up 'means bringing together every capability we have, from drones, to artillery, to human instinct and intelligence, into one formidable, integrated fighting machine,' Starmer said. The review, led by former NATO secretary general George Robertson, warns that Britain is entering 'a new era of threat' as drones and artificial intelligence transform modern warfare, The Guardian newspaper reported Saturday. The document will describe the 'immediate and pressing' danger posed by Russia, as well as focusing on China, Iran and North Korea. Robertson has described the four countries as a 'deadly quartet' which were 'increasingly working together.'
Yahoo
8 hours ago
- Business
- Yahoo
UK to restore 'war-fighting readiness' with new defence review
UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer said Sunday he will "restore Britain's war-fighting readiness" as his government warned of "growing" Russian aggression ahead of a major defence strategy review. "We will restore Britain's war-fighting readiness as the central purpose of our armed forces," Starmer wrote in The Sun daily, including by ramping up weapons production capacity. His government's Strategic Defence Review, due to be published Monday, will assess threats facing the UK, amid Russia's ongoing war in Ukraine and pressure from US President Donald Trump for NATO allies to bolster their own defences. Starmer wrote that It will serve as "a blueprint for strength and security for decades to come". Defence Secretary John Healey warned of "growing Russian aggression", including through "daily" cyberattacks on the UK's "defence system". "We're in a world that is changing now... and it is a world of growing threats," Healey told the BBC on Sunday. "It's growing Russian aggression. It's those daily cyberattacks, it's new nuclear risks, and it's increasing tension in other parts of the world as well." The defence review will recommend "creating an 'always on' munitions production capacity in the UK" allowing the scaling up of weapons production if needed, according to the Ministry of Defence. The document also urges the government to create conditions in industry to boost munition stockpiles. In February, Starmer committed to hiking defence spending to 2.5 percent of GDP by 2027, up from its current 2.3 percent, and to further raise it to three percent by around 2029. His Labour administration has said it would cut UK overseas aid to help fund the spending. - New technologies - On Saturday the government announced £1.5 billion ($2 billion) for building "at least six munitions and energetics factories" as well as procuring 7,000 domestically built long-range weapons. This investment -- which will see £6 billion spent on munitions under the current parliament -- would create and support 1,800 jobs. "We are strengthening the UK's industrial base to better deter our adversaries and make the UK secure at home and strong abroad," Healey said. The Ministry of Defence also pledged £1 billion for the creation of a "cyber command" to help on the battlefield. The defence shake-up "means bringing together every capability we have, from drones, to artillery, to human instinct and intelligence, into one formidable, integrated fighting machine," Starmer said. The review, led by former NATO secretary general George Robertson, warns that Britain is entering "a new era of threat" as drones and artificial intelligence transform modern warfare, The Guardian newspaper reported Saturday. The document will describe the "immediate and pressing" danger posed by Russia, as well as focusing on China, Iran and North Korea. Robertson has described the four countries as a "deadly quartet" which were "increasingly working together". aks/rmb
Associated Press
2 days ago
- General
- Associated Press
Czech Republic accuses China of ‘malicious cyber campaign' against its foreign ministry
PRAGUE (AP) — The Czech Republic has accused China of being 'responsible' for cyberattacks against a a communication network of its Foreign Ministry, officials said on Wednesday. The Foreign Ministry in Prague said the malicious activities started in 2022 and targeted the country's critical infrastructure, adding it believed the Advanced Persistent Threat 31, or APT31, hacking group, which is associated with the Chinese Ministry of State Security, was behind the campaign. It was not immediately clear what specific information were seized or what damage was caused by the attacks. The Czech ministry said a new communication system has already been put in place. Foreign Minister Jan Lipavský said in a separate statement that his ministry summoned China's ambassador to Prague to make it clear to Beijing 'that such activities have serious impacts on mutual relations.' 'The government of the Czech Republic strongly condemns this malicious cyber campaign against its critical infrastructure,' the statement said. 'Such behavior undermines the credibility of the People's Republic of China and contradicts its public declarations.' The Chinese Embassy dismissed the Czech accusations as 'groundless.' It said China fights 'all forms of cyber attacks and does not support, promote or tolerate hacker attacks.' The United States denounced the Chinese activities and called on China to stop it immediately, the U.S. Embassy in Prague said in a statement. It said ATP31 previously targeted U.S. and foreign politicians, foreign policy experts and others. 'APT31 has also stolen trade secrets and intellectual property, and targeted entities in some of America's most vital critical infrastructure sectors, including the Defense Industrial Base, information technology, and energy sectors,' the embassy said. NATO and the European Union also condemned the attack and expressed solidarity with the Czechs. 'We observe with increasing concern the growing pattern of malicious cyber activities stemming from the People's Republic of China,' NATO said. 'This attack is an unacceptable breach of international norms,' Kaja Kallas, the EU's foreign policy chief, said. 'The EU will not tolerate hostile cyber actions.' In a separated cyberattack in 2017, the email account of then Czech Foreign Minister Lubomír Zaorálek and the accounts of dozens of ministry officials were successfully hacked. Officials said the attack was sophisticated, and experts believed it was done by a foreign state, which was not named then.
The Independent
3 days ago
- Politics
- The Independent
In the robot wars of the future, human beings will be redundant
If we want to know what the next world war will look like, we need do no more than see what is happening in Ukraine. Just as the mass aerial bombings of the Second World War could be witnessed first in the Spanish civil war two years earlier, and the Boer War revealed the shortcomings in the organisation of the British Army that had to be rectified by the time of the Great War (when new ones arose), so now we can peer into the present to better prepare ourselves for a European conflict that is feeling inevitable. It might be said to be the first 'modern' war of the 21st century, the first in which a variety of new and evolving technologies is deployed, and with devastating effect. The most obvious is, of course, the drone – cheap and highly effective, provided its signals don't get jammed. But there are others, including the kinds of cyber attacks on companies and national institutions launched by state actors, unofficial proxies and purely criminal gangs who might be persuaded to turn mercenary for a share of the loot in return for assistance from the military. We've seen in recent years what cyber attacks can do to the NHS, banks and, most recently, retailers, and they are as devastating as any air raid. Nuclear weapons have barely been mentioned in the Russia-Ukraine conflict, and the early assumptions that it would be Second World War, Kursk-style massed tank battles proved short-lived. Over in the merciless war in Gaza, the lessons about the future of combat are less clear – except that the Israeli 'Iron Dome' system proved almost completely effective against Iranian missile attacks, and thus effectively disarmed the ayatollahs as a force to be feared. Now, Donald Trump wants such a defensive shield for America, which is understandable, given that the Americans designed Israel's smaller version. So warfare is being transformed. It is reassuring that the British government seems alert to what is happening. John Healey, minister of defence and one of Labour's unobtrusive, low-key success stories, has announced £1bn to fund more brigades of 'keyboard warriors', and non-human soldiers, this time to create a 'new Digital Targeting Web '. Troops on the ground will be better directed by intelligence gained via satellites, aircraft reconnaissance and drones. That will help them avoid being blown up by enemy ordnance, and assist them in moving faster to hit the other side. Artificial intelligence, like every new technology invented by man before it, is finding an early military application, which will no doubt speed its own evolution, as happened with, for instance, powered flight a century ago. It is not too fanciful in fact to envisage a world where human beings will be replaced by humanoid robots on the battlefield, fighting one another and vast swarms of drones overhead, all controlled by AI military 'brains' thousands of miles away. Just as will become the case in trade and industry, the human being will become redundant in the cyber-wars of the future, except as victims and casualties. Wars will probably be even more destructive than those in the past, because the 'productivity' of a modern war machine powered by AI would be so much greater. It actually makes the arguments about military spending a little less relevant: if a country makes the wrong choices about future procurement and strategy, it doesn't matter how much of the GDP it spends on the wrong stuff. If the Royal Navy's majestic Queen Elizabeth-class aircraft carriers are basically defenceless against squadrons of cheap drones able to overwhelm their defences, we will feel as foolish and vulnerable as when the Japanese went round the back of biggest coastal defence guns in the world and walked into Singapore in 1942. President Trump says his 'Golden Dome' will cost some $175bn; if so, and if it works (not yet obvious), it will be a bargain. The UK's strategic defence review is to be published on Monday – and not before time. How we expend our scarce national resources on defending ourselves is just as crucial as how much the Treasury is prepared to cough up. The abiding lesson of history, however, is that preventing and deterring war is a lot less costly than fighting one.
