Foreign governments are the primary threat
to the UK's critical national infrastructure because of their
hunger for information, according to the government agency
responsible for monitoring infrastructure
security.
Speaking at the launch of the Sans Top 20, Roger
Cummings, director of the National Infrastructure Security
Co-ordination Centre (NISCC), said the most significant electronic
threats are content-based, targetedTrojan horse email attacks from the Far
East, probing the infrastructure for
information.
The NISCC said it is working with its equivalents in
the countries concerned totry to shut the attacks
down, adding that for diplomatic reasons
it couldn’t name the countries concerned.
Cummings defined what he called the “malicious
marketplace'’ where exploit writers can make money by selling their
threats.
“Who are the most capable organisations to make use
of exploits? Foreign states are the most capable actors. They are
the ones currently sitting at the top of the marketplace,” he said.
The foreign states are followed by criminals who are alsotrying to compromise the national infrastructure to
try to sell information, he
said.
He suggested that hackers motivated by kudos or
money pose a more serious threat than terrorists, who currently
have a low capability.
"We are concerned that the malicious marketplace
will make available exploits that can do us damage," said
Cummings.
Surely it’s not a case of if, but when.