Cybersecurity

GCHQ: British cyberweapons could paralyse hostile states

Britain has developed sophisticated cyberweapons capable of crippling a hostile state, GCHQ has revealed amid warnings that Russia is launching more aggressive online attacks.

Assaults on US central command, Twitter accounts and a French TV network, made to look like Islamist attacks, appear to have been Russia “ostentatiously flexing its muscles towards the West”, parliament’s intelligence and security committee (ISC) has been told.

The watchdog, which oversees the intelligence agencies MI5, MI6 and GCHQ, was told that Britain’s cyberdefence plans were ahead of schedule, with almost double the number of new capabilities. GCHQ, the intelligence body based in Cheltenham, was developing a “full spectrum” of weapons as Moscow’s use of its online arsenal increased.