Foreign countries conducting web-based espionage now present the greatest threat to the nation's security, a report says

Government and military computer systems in the UK are coming under sustained attack from China and other countries, a major new study gives warning today.

The closely-read annual Virtual Criminology Report, which draws on interviews with senior staff at organisations including the Serious Organised Crime Agency, Nato and the FBI, says that the UK has entered a “cyber cold war” in which web-based espionage poses the biggest threat to national security.

It envisages a future where rogue governments and criminal gangs regularly target the computer systems that run electricity, air traffic control, financial markets and Government computer networks.

Dr Ian Brown of Oxford University, one of the report’s authors, said: “We know that UK computer networks have been probed by China. The means to carry out ‘cyber-warfare’ have been under development for years. Now is the first time that we are seeing states flex their muscles.”

 Source : Times Online UK