Streeting urges public to prepare for disruption from cyber emergencies
Defence Secretary Wes Streeting has warned that households and businesses should prepare for “increasingly sophisticated cyber attacks” and potential disruption to essential supplies.
It comes as households are being urged to take steps to be prepared if everyday services are temporarily disrupted.
The Government is launching a “be ready” campaign to provide advice to the public, including by gathering supplies and finding out how to volunteer to support communities during an emergency.
Mr Streeting said: “It’s really important that we ask households and businesses, are they prepared, are they ready, do they know how they would respond in the event of everyday challenges that might manifest themselves?
“But we’ll also need to take the country a step further and ask them are they prepared for increasingly sophisticated cyber attacks on our businesses, are they prepared for the eventuality that there may be disruption to essential supply chains caused by hostile state actors or terrorists?
“How would we cope if the payment systems at the local supermarket went down?
“Those are the sorts of everyday challenges and threats that we could face, and it’s right that we ask the country to be ready for those things and ask everyone to do their bit.”
Published: by Radio NewsHub