Cyber deemed greatest terror threat over next five years

On 16 July, Counter Terror Business hosted the first virtual CTB365 event, looking at the physical, personnel and cyber elements involved in protecting our Critical National Infrastructure.

Hosted by security expert Philip Ingram, and supported by the Security Institute, the event was an unheralded success.

Throughout the event, more than 300 delegates were presented with a number of survey questions, including where they they thought the greatest terror threat would come from over the next five years. One in ten of our audience said the Islamist threat was greatest, with slightly more tending to believe that the recent growth in right wing extremism would pose the greatest threat (15 per cent).

However, nearly seven in ten (69 per cent) said that the greatest threat would be cyber-related. That belief was shared by some of our speakers, including Neil Sinclair, National Cyber Lead, Police Digital Security Centre, who provided a presentation on ensuring that prediction, prevention, and detection are given equal footing in a cyber plan, as well as the Information Security Forum’s Andy Jones, who discussed the importance of managing vulnerabilities in a digitised world.

At the start of the month, an INTERPOL assessment of the impact of coronavirus on cyber crime has shown a significant target shift from individuals and small businesses to major corporations, governments and critical infrastructure.

In the four-month period from January to April, some 907,000 spam messages, 737 incidents related to malware and 48,000 malicious URLs – all related to coronavirus – were detected by one of INTERPOL’s private sector partners.

You can view the webinar content here.