Skip to content

Technology and money in plain English · Since 2012

Cybersecurity
News

UK is reportedly preparing for a Russian-backed cyberattack

UK is reportedly preparing for a Russian-backed cyberattack

We may earn a commission when you buy through links on this page. It doesn't change what we recommend.

Tensions between the UK and Russia continue to rise, both sides are now preparing themselves for cyberattacks. According to The Times, Prime Minister Theresa May has been receiving intelligence risk assessments regarding a possible Russian-based cyberattack that could end up releasing embarrassing or compromising information about UK ministers, members of parliament and others.

Unnamed security sources told The Times that in the case of an attack on UK infrastructure, British officials are prepared to launch their own cyberattacks against Russia. Intelligence officials are on high alert right now for such an attack to occur and are prepared for retaliation both the UK response to a nerve agent attack on former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughters as well as this weekend’s strikes on Syrian chemical storage facilities, development centers and bunkers. UK, US and France all participated in the strikes.

“It wouldn’t be impossible that they get through in some way that really hurts us. If they aggressively come after us, we will certainly have the ability to do some stuff to them. But unlike Russia, we abide by the law, so anything we do would be proportionately done,” said one source. Another added, “They’re more likely to revert to targeted information and try and cause as much embarrassment and chaos as possible.”

 

See something that needs fixing? Report an error

Get The Jolt Journal in your inbox

The day’s top stories in tech, finance and AI, picked by our editors. Free.

Choose your newsletters

Up next

Keep reading

Add The Jolt Journal as a preferred source on Google

Add The Jolt Journal to your Home Screen to get alerts

Most Popular

More in Cybersecurity

See all

Leave a comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Breaking-news alerts

We’ll send a notification to this device when a big story breaks. Choose what you want, then allow notifications when your browser asks. You can change this or turn alerts off any time.

Send me