Government vows to 'strike back' at cyber-attackers

A new national online security strategy launched today will see the government "relentlessly pursue" cyber-attackers.

The five-year initiative, to be announced by Chancellor Philip Hammond, will be backed by a £1.9bn investment made in last year's Defence and Security Review.

It will see the government bolster automatic defences to prevent hackers hijacking websites or spoofing official domains, as well as creating defences to intercept booby-trapped emails and stop fraudsters impersonating bank websites, reports Sky News.

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The move comes after the government's National Security Strategy identified cyber security as a "tier 1" risk - the same level of threat as terrorism and global instability.

Hammond will pledge that the UK will defend itself in cyberspace and "strike back" against those who try to harm the country.

Britain "must now keep up with the scale and pace of the threats we face", he is to say, adding that the new strategy "will allow us to take even greater steps to defend ourselves in cyberspace and to strike back when we are attacked".

Ben Gummer, the paymaster general, said cyber attacks were "no longer the stuff of spy thrillers and action movies" but "a reality". He identified Britain's adversaries as "organised criminal groups, 'hacktivists', untrained teenagers and foreign states".

But Professor Alan Woodward, a computer security expert from the University of Surrey, told the BBC the authorities must take the issue even more seriously. "The government talk about 50 recruits here and 50 there," he said. "I'm afraid we need many more."