British spies are building elite cyber offensive forces to strike at Islamic State fighters, hackers and hostile powers, finance minister George Osborne said on Tuesday after warning militants wanted to launch deadly digital attacks.
Islamic State was trying to develop the capability to attack British infrastructure such as hospitals, power networks and air traffic control systems with potentially lethal consequences, Osborne said.
In response, Britain will bolster spending on cyber defenses, simplify its state cyber structures and build its own offensive cyber capability to attack adversaries.
We will defend ourselves. But we will also take the fight to you
Osborne, Britain’s second most powerful politician after Prime Minister David Cameron, said in a speech at Britain’s GCHQ eavesdropping agency.
“We are building our own offensive cyber capability – a dedicated ability to counter-attack in cyberspace. When we talk about tackling (Islamic State), that means tackling their cyber threat as well as their guns, bombs and knives.”
Britain’s new cyber attack forces will be run jointly between GCHQ and the Defence Ministry and will target individual hackers, criminal gangs, militant groups and hostile powers, using a “full spectrum” of actions, Osborne said.
GCHQ traces its history back to World War One signals intelligence with Winston Churchill as its founder and once reported to the MI6 foreign intelligence service but has since gained significant influence as one of the world’s pre-eminent eavesdropping agencies.
