Ellie Cook
Western nations including the U.S. and its allies are in an "arms race" against countries, organizations and individuals who could wield cyber capabilities to wreak havoc on critical infrastructure, a former top U.K. cybersecurity official has warned.
"The threat is always escalating," Robert Hannigan, the former chief of the U.K.'s GCHQ cybersecurity and intelligence service, told Newsweek. "It's an arms race, but it's not one we are losing."
NATO describes cyber threats to its members as "complex, destructive and coercive," and increasingly common. Cyber attacks are sometimes referred to when talking about types of hybrid assaults, or tactics which aren’t open warfare but are designed to be destabilizing.
They can home in on critical infrastructure, such as energy networks and health care, or involve hacking systems and leaking information. They can also mean pushing disinformation campaigns, assaulting economic networks and disrupting vital communications.
Those mounting cyber attacks — often dubbed "malign actors" — share information and tactics, as well as weaponizing artificial intelligence in what has become an "arms race," added Chris Inglis, who became the White House's first National Cyber Director under former President Joe Biden in 2021 and previously served as deputy director of the National Security Agency (NSA).
A map with the outline of Russia is displayed on a screen at the Australian Center for Cyber Cooperation during a visit by Foreign Minister Baerbock o...Read More | Sina Schuldt/picture-alliance/dpa/AP Images
"We have the means to do something about it," Inglis told Newsweek. "Now, the question is, whether we will." Both Hannigan and Inglis were speaking from the Global Cybersecurity Forum in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
Multiple European airports were hit with a cyber-attack last month using ransomware, according to the European Union’s cybersecurity agency, ENISA. Ransomware is a type of malicious software that can cut users off from systems, information or a network until a ransom is paid. The attack upended check-in desk operations and boarding information for flights in major airports such as London Heathrow and Brussels.
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