GCHQ calls for greater collaboration to tackle cybercrime

The potential for serious disruption to critical national infrastructure is "real and credible"

The government should collaborate with ISPs

National security agencies should collaborate with internet service providers to fight cyber attacks, according to Iain Lobban, director of GCHQ, the government intelligence agency.

In a speech to the International Institute for Strategic Studies, Lobban warned that the potential of cyber attacks to cause serious disruption to critical national infrastructure was “real and credible”.

One way of dealing with those threats, he said, was to collaborate with operators, who could provide a direct feed of information that would make GCHQ aware of attacks as soon as they happened.

This would enable the organisation to respond with “active defensive techniques’” as well as quickly spread knowledge of the threat to others.

The strategy would require “a different sort of partnership between the national security agencies and key industry players”, he said, adding, “Our systems will need to be more interconnected.”

Lobban said that one of the major difficulties Britain faced was in attributing cyber activity to a particular nation state: “It’s not always impossible, but it is very, very hard.” He acknowledged that military cyber capabilities could be used “for deterrent effect” – but did not say whether GCHQ was involved in developing such capabilities.

Government systems were experiencing “significant disruption” he said, from the 20,000 malicious emails they received each month, 1,000 of which were deliberately targeted.

Lobban also explained that the growth in cybercrime poses a challenge for those tasked with putting more public services online, and added: “In the modern world, the same technology that our adversaries use is used by citizens going about their daily business.

"So reassuring people that they are being appropriately defended against threats without encroachments on their privacy is very important.”