Bridewell reports UK CNI facing increasing cyber threats since beginning of the Ukraine war

Cybersecurity services firm Bridewell reported Tuesday that the U.K.’s critical national infrastructure (CNI) has been facing an increasing cyber threat since the start of the Ukraine war. The firm identified that over seven in 10 cybersecurity decision-makers at these critical installations that typically run a nation’s water, energy, and power installations had reported a rise in cyber attacks in recent months.

The Reading, UK-based firm surveyed 521 cybersecurity decision-makers from various CNI sectors, including communications, utilities, finance, government, transportation, and aviation sectors. The research reveals a high degree of concern, as 72 percent report an increase in cyber attacks targeting UK critical infrastructure, putting infrastructure and society at risk.

Bridewell’s research also found that over three quarters, about 78 percent, are worried about the threat of cyber warfare against the U.K.’s CNI, with a quarter concerned that their systems are vulnerable. This raises concerns over the safety of the U.K.’s critical infrastructure, with one in ten also fearing their team wouldn’t be able to cope with a cyber warfare attack.

“Concern over cyber warfare is significantly higher in the transport and aviation sector with 93% worried about the threat of cyber warfare,” the researchers said. “Over 8 in 10 (86%) report increased cyber attacks since the start of the Ukraine war and 69% worry their systems are vulnerable to attack,” they added.

“As attacks rise in sophistication and volume, operators of critical national infrastructure must collaborate more effectively and share intelligence needed to protect infrastructure and society,” Martin Riley, director of managed security services at Bridewell, said in a media statement. 

“Great progress has been made across the industry since the introduction of the NIS Regulations but it’s now imperative that organisations include threat intelligence in their cyber security strategies to strengthen resilience,” according to Riley. “Developing a culture of information-sharing among peers and supply chains is key to protecting our infrastructure and citizens,” he added.

Industrial Cyber has reached out to Bridewell for more details on its research and will update the article if they revert.

The Bridewell data was released when the U.S. Department of State said that is joining with allies and partners to condemn Russia’s destructive cyber activities against Ukraine. In the months leading up to and after Russia’s illegal further invasion began, Ukraine experienced a series of disruptive cyber operations, including website defacements, distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks, and cyberattacks to delete data from computers belonging to both government and private entities.

Anna Ribeiro

Industrial Cyber News Editor. Anna Ribeiro is a freelance journalist with over 14 years of experience in the areas of security, data storage, virtualization and IoT.