The widely reported IT outage in July caused significant disruption worldwide. In this case the fault was essentially due to a bug in a security update rather than a cyber-attack, but it demonstrated the vulnerability of networks.

The government announced its plan during the King’s Speech to introduce a Cyber Security and Resilience Bill. The National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) report that the threat to services we all rely on, such as water, power and healthcare, is under increasing threat. Both ransomware actors and state or state-aligned groups have shown interest in targeting these systems.

NCSC have welcomed the prospect of the new Bill, which they say will make it harder for weak points in the UK’s critical national infrastructure to be exploited.