UK lawmakers have launched an inquiry into the cyber-resilience of critical national infrastructure (CNI), claiming the country is the third most targeted globally, after the US and Ukraine.
The Science, Innovation and Technology Committee will oversee the inquiry, alarmed at the proliferation of state and non-state actors using offensive cyber capabilities against UK organizations.
As well as a surge in attacks since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the committee cited concerns over “competing priorities” between the government and the private companies that own much of the UK’s CNI.
It added that proprietary computing products have “varying levels” of cyber-resilience.
Read more on cyber-resilience: UK Government: Cyber-Attacks Could Kill or Maim Thousands
“The committee … will explore the progress of UK CNI toward achieving recently announced resilience targets by 2025, and what support the sector needs to achieve those targets and efforts to make computer hardware architecture more secure by design to protect CNI,” the committee noted.
“What should be the government’s approach to standards and regulations for cyber-resilience and preparedness, supply chain access, and trusted partners?”
The committee has invited industry experts to submit evidence in response to a range of pointed questions about CNI cyber-resilience, including what the strengths and weaknesses are of the government’s National Cyber Strategy 2022 and Government Cyber Security Strategy 2022-2030.
“Not all countries are able to measure the extent to which their infrastructure is being compromised. The UK should be congratulated on being on being able to do this,” argued Paul Brucciani, cybersecurity advisor at WithSecure.
“The position of being the third ‘most targeted country’ should be assessed against all the other countries with similar measurement capability.”