Editor in Chief: Moh. Reza Huwaida Friday, March 29th, 2024

Cyber Attacks on the UK State and private institutions

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Cyber Attacks on the UK State and private institutions

The issue of cyber attacks on UK official and private websites is a challenging problem as the country home office has recently experienced severe cyber attacks on it website. Home office in its website confirms that in a terrorist attack the Home Secretary leads the government response to the incident according to his/her responsibility for countering terrorism in Scotland, England and Wales. The website further conforms that in the event of terrorist incident the Office for Security and Counter-Terrorism is responsible for activating and coordinating the Home Office response.

On April 8, 2012, Cyber terrorists from unknown base challenged government and its competent institutions that they are capable to hack any website within the country. In my previous articles and research papers, what I had warned about the future cyber terror attack on the UK state institutions has now become a reality.

In my telepathic approach, the group that hacked Home Office website is operating within the country. The arrival of highly competent cyber security and cyber war experts in the country and their access to the websites of state and private institutions may further cause fear and harassment within business communities and banking sectors. This abrupt attack on the Home Office website also proved to be very much irksome within the government circles.

The perception that the group attack is in protest against the recent government surveillance proposals is not correct; cyber terrorists in Britain are as strong as they have already attacked the websites of several government departments in the past. A Home Office spokesman said that Government has put potential measures in place and will be monitoring the situation closely. Cyber security experts view this recent attack on Home Office website as a bigger challenge for the GCHQ resolve in countering cyber terrorism.

Last year, as I mentioned in my articles, cyber attacks on Foreign Office and other institutions were reported by local newspapers. This is an economic or E-jihad against the country from within. Yesterday, in an intellectual debate in East London on the issue of E-jihad against Britain economy and state institutions, some experts proposed the establishment of cyber security research institutes to help the government in countering this undeclared borderless cyber war.

This is not the first time Britain's institutions experience cyber attacks, Foreign Minister William Hague told reporters that there had been an exponential rise in cyber incidents. On January 25, 2012, departments of Justice and Finance websites in the Irish Republic were hacked by cyber warriors.

On March 20th, 2012, Chinese government complained about cyber attacks against the state and private institutions. China Daily reported millions of computer affected by these attacks. The emergence of well trained cyber groups are the biggest threat to corporate information security. These highly skilled groups are collaborating to discover new vulnerabilities in the financial markets and government-run institutions.

Cyber attacks on UK state and private institutions have risen with the cost estimated to be £26 billion and in US one trillion dollar. These UK based well trained groups are the biggest threat to corporate information security. The GCHQ is considered to be the guardian of Britain's vulnerable financial assets and National Critical Infrastructure.

Cyber terrorism is the most serious threat facing the country. The London Olympics may come under attack from these forces, but the GCHQ and counterterrorism forces can successfully intercepted their attacks with the help of other state institutions. Cyber terrorists can place many computerized 'bombs' around the city, they can disrupt the security system, international financial transactions. During the Olympic Games in London, experts believe cyber attacks cannot be ruled out as China experienced 12 million attacks a day during the 2008 games.

Experts have already warned that the London Olympic Games could come under attack from cyber terrorists. The issue is very critical and recent attack of Home Office website is the first warning while they are preparing more horses for future attacks.

As the state and private institutions in the country have already been experiencing cyber attacks against their websites since a decade, new groups of financial jihadists started training their hackers to wage war against the global financial markets.

These groups are skilled, educated, experts in cyber warfare, and have the capability to destroy and disrupt any financial and security network around the world. They utilize their computer skills to hack into the servers of state institutions and private companies, and use those servers, unbeknownst to the provider or proxy servers.

McAfee has recently warned that though GCHQ is well prepared to tackle these cyber attacks, a thorough investigation against the countrywide cyber terror networks is a must because these groups often attack various state and private institutions.

The newly migrated UK-based expert groups have already carried out successful attacks against the state and private institutions, but their main strategies include attacks on banks and the National Critical Infrastructure. These E-jihadists exploit the internet through different technologies for retrieving information but justify the looting of important data as their fundamental right.

A financial war between Europe and Asia has now become a hyper-strategic weapon. On January 26, 2012, international information security expert Col. (Rtd.) William warned that the UK businesses could fall victim to cyber attacks from across the border.

The UK National Security Strategy review recently signaled out the London Olympic as at major risk of cyber terror attack. According to the GCHQ chief, there are over 20,000 hostile emails on British government networks each month, one thousand of which are deliberately launched by cyber terrorists and foreign states.

The Chief of Britain's most respected security agency MI5 has recently warned that Russia was still running spying operations in Britain at cold war level. As former Defense Secretary Liam Fox warned last year about the Russian espionage networks in London, some private institutions are worrying about their business websites.

During the last two decades, cyber terrorists have attacked thousands of websites including the websites of the UK government, causing millions of pounds in damage. Now this war has reached a breaking point. To combat the forces of financial jihad, Britain's Cyber Security Strategy was published in November 2011, which underlined the technicality of the threat faced by the country's institutions from economic jihadists and state-sponsored cyber forces.

The basic objectives of the UK Cyber Security Strategy are to introduce the traditions of partnership and transparency both across business and within the international community in an effort to meet the growing cyber threat.

The writer is the author of Policing in Multicultural Britain and Civil War and the Partition of Afghanistan. He can be reached at zai.musakhan222@gmail.com

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