Spy chief: We go after cyber gangs overseas

Ransomware attacks have doubled, says GCHQ boss

RANSOMWARE attacks in the UK have doubled in just a year as criminal gangs “make very good money” from them, a British spy chief warned today.

Sir Jeremy Fleming, director of the GCHQ spy listening centre, sounded the alarm over the threat from criminals — some linked to hostile states — paralysing computer networks and demanding a ransom to unlock them.

Secret operations are being launched by Britain’s National Cyber Force to “go after” ransomwarers beyond the reach of law enforcement agencies.

Sir Jeremy did not go into details on counter-strikes but said intelligence agencies and law enforcement needed to do more so ransomware “pays less”.

Links between “criminal actors and state actors” are being pursued so that “costs” can be imposed to deter them.

“We’ve seen twice as many attacks this year as last year in the UK,” Sir Jeremy told the Cipher Brief: Threat Conference, emphasising the need for businesses to boost cyber defences.

“We have up until quite recently left a lot of this playing space to those criminal actors in effect to proliferate and to make a lot of money,” he said. The spy chief also highlighted the rise of China and said the West had to stay ahead in the technological race to ensure Artificial Intelligence and other changes are based on liberal values.

“We want to have a role in projecting western liberal democratic values and approaches to technology, we want to shape the rules of technology for tomorrow and ensure they’re in our image rather than in another’s image,” he said.

If smart cities, data centres and cable projects were not based on a “western” model, it would be a “very different model”, he warned. There are “swing states” that are undecided on which vision of technological progress to adopt, he added.

Cyber gangs behind ransomware attacks on the UK are mostly based abroad, including in Russia and neighbouring states according to the National Cyber Security Centre. Sir Jeremy said: “The pointy end of the spear, which is, well for those that you are finding hard to get to then you go after.”

While these operations had had some success, he added: “We’re quite a long way off really addressing the profit model which is making this just so easy for criminals to exploit at the moment.”

Tesco’s website and app were up and running again today after a suspected hack. The outage, which left customers struggling to shop for, amend or track orders, began on Saturday morning and continued yesterday. A spokesperson said: “Our online grocery website and app are now back up and running. Our teams have worked around the clock to restore service, and we’re really sorry to our customers for the inconvenience caused.” Tesco said an attempt to “interfere” with its systems caused the problem, but there was “no reason” to believe customer data was affected.