The National Cyber Security Centre released a warning in their Annual Review 2023 in which they warned off an overseas threat to critical national infrastructure. In the release, the NCSC highlighted 4 key groups that will be continuing to put pressure on key UK services.
Russian threat actors are the first problem group identified by the NCSC, it claims Russian threat actors could be preparing attacks against UK’s CNI with the Kremlin protecting a lot of Ransomware groups that operate within its jurisdiction.
Another identified group are Chinese threat actors who are specifically seek “strategic objectives which threaten the security and stability of UK interests”. North Korea have also been identified however their motivation is still very much still raising funds through stealing information and credentials rather than a specific political motivation.
Iran are the final group identified who have been using less technically challenging methods to steal information for a political goal. They have been known to be largely attacking Academia, the defence sector and government agencies and politicians.
The NCSC warn of an increase in threats to the UK political scene with them predicting a likely increase in politicians being targeted as well as an increase in deepfake and ai misinformation campaigns.
The report also revealed that The NCSC received 2005 incident reports from businesses and organisations within the UK making it a 64% annual increase, although the rise is due to new data collection methods. Of the 355 deemed serious enough for the special incident management team to respond to, 62 were classified as “nationally significant” by the organisation.