Public to be told how to prepare for cyber-attack and weather emergencies

BBC  |  Kate Whannel

The UK government will launch a nationwide public awareness campaign and conduct its largest home defence exercise in decades to prepare the population for severe weather and cyber-attacks. Cabinet Office Minister Darren Jones announced these resilience measures alongside updates to the national risk register, which now includes ninety-five acute threats.

This policy shift responds to escalating systemic vulnerabilities, including potential digital resilience failures such as the global CrowdStrike outage and cyber-attacks targeting critical water infrastructure. To address these evolving hybrid threats, ministers will execute Operation Albiston Shadow, a multi-day exercise designed to test national response capabilities. Additionally, officials are updating the country's classified crisis "war books" for the first time since 2004. While the threat of Russian gas supply disruption was removed due to reduced energy reliance, the updated framework reflects heightened concerns over rapid artificial intelligence developments and climate-induced extreme weather events.

Comment

Modern hybrid warfare targets civilian infrastructure rather than military assets. The Civil Contingencies Act 2004 requires urgent doctrinal updates to address decentralised cyber threats. Decentralised public preparedness reduces the strategic utility of hostile cognitive and cyber operations. Resilient domestic networks directly support forward military deployment capabilities during crises.

To read in details click here