16 July 2024

Evolving Chinese cyber threat 'should worry us all': U.K. cyber head

NAOYA YOSHINO

China and North Korea are among the world's most worrisome countries in terms of cybersecurity threats, but that is not the full extent of the risks, the head of the British government's National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) said in an interview.

"Increasingly, we're worried about the proliferation of cyber challenges, which allow any country in the world to purchase cyber, malware or other challenges to hit us or businesses in our countries," the NCSC's COO and interim CEO Felicity Oswald told Nikkei.

Edited excerpts from the interview follow.

Q: Critics have said Japan lags far behind Western nations in cybersecurity measures. What do you think about Japan's cybersecurity vulnerabilities and the risks to its national security and corporate activity?

A: It is not for me to say that Japan is lagging behind. I do think, though, that the cyber threats we all face are getting more and more complex.

The threats we face from cyber range from criminal actors all around the world, including in Russia, but also from nation states. So we at the National Cyber Security Centre mainly talk about four big nation states: China, of course, Russia, Iran and North Korea. And then increasingly, we're worried about the proliferation of cyber challenges, which allow any country in the world to purchase cyber, malware or other challenges to hit us or businesses in our countries.

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