Cyber terrorismTerrorists gaining cyber capability to bring major cities to a standstill: U.K. intelligence chief
Robert Hannigan, the director of GCHQ, the British equivalent of the U.S. NSA, has warned that terrorists and rogue states are gaining the technical capability to bring a major city to a standstill with the click of a button. He said that the risk to cities like London would significantly increase as more physical objects – cars, household appliances — are connected online in what is called the Internet of Things.
Robert Hannigan, the director of GCHQ, the British equivalent of the U.S. NSA, has warned that terrorists and rogue states are gaining the technical capability to bring a major city to a standstill with the click of a button.
Hannigan usually does not appear or speak in public, but in a rare public speech he said that the risk to cities like London would significantly increase as more physical objects – cars, household appliances — are connected online in what is called the Internet of Things.
Hannigan was speaking at the Cheltenham Science Festival.
The Telegraph reports that Hannigan warned that nation-states were busy working on developing the kind of cyber programs that could attack the United Kingdom, and that terrorist organizations were seeking to exploit the technology.
“At some stage they will get the capability,” he said. “There are certainly states and groups with the intent to do it, terrorist groups, for example, who have no threshold when it comes to the loss of life.
“We’re not quite there yet, but as the world becomes ever more connected that will become a greater risk.”
Hannigan defending the Internet surveillance powers given to the GCHQ and other intelligence agencies by the controversial Investigatory Powers Bill, which passed its third reading in the House of Commons. He said that seven attacks against the United Kingdom had been foiled in the last eighteen months due to bulk data analysis.
