British government and industry computer systems are facing a “disturbing” number of cyber attacks, including a recent serious assault on the Foreign Office's network, the head of Britain's communications spy agency said on Monday. Iain Lobban, director of the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), said the attacks posed a threat to Britain's economic wellbeing.“The volume of e-crime and attacks on government and industry systems continue to be disturbing,” Lobban wrote in an article for the Times newspaper.I can attest to attempts to steal British ideas and designs – in the IT, technology, defence, engineering and energy sectors as well as other industries -- to gain commercial advantage or to profit from secret knowledge of contractual arrangements.” Lobban's GCHQ agency, a big eavesdropping operation similar to the National Security Agency in the United States, handles operations such as intelligence-gathering and code-busting and is at the forefront of Britain's cyber defences. Lobban rarely makes public comments, he gave a speech, saying countries were using cyber warfare techniques to attack each other. “We are also aware of similar techniques being employed to try to acquire sensitive information from British government computer systems, including one significant (but unsuccessful) attempt on the Foreign Office and other government departments this summer,” he wrote. The last year has seen a dramatic increase in reported cyber attacks often linked to governments, from apparent attempts at data theft at the International Monetary Fund and elsewhere often blamed on China, to the Stuxnet computer worm attack on Iran's nuclear programme linked to Israel and the United States. Britain is hosting a major international conference on the management of cyberspace this week which will be attended by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and senior representatives from China, Russia, India and other governments and leading industry figures. It will look at how there can be greater international cooperation on tackling cyber issues. British Foreign Secretary William Hague told the Times there were more than 600 “malicious” attacks on British government systems every day, while criminals could obtain stolen credit card details of Britons over the Internet for just 70 pence. He said countries which could not protect their banking systems and intellectual property would be at a serious disadvantage in future.”Hague and Lobban said governments and businesses needed to work together to address the threats. “Cyberspace is going to be one of the great challenges of our day,” Lobban said.
