{"id":161783,"date":"2025-09-26T15:17:09","date_gmt":"2025-09-26T15:17:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/161783\/"},"modified":"2025-09-26T15:17:09","modified_gmt":"2025-09-26T15:17:09","slug":"uk-has-suffered-at-least-26-major-cyberattacks-in-last-five-years-guido-fawkes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/161783\/","title":{"rendered":"UK Has Suffered at Least 26 Major Cyberattacks in Last Five Years \u2013 Guido Fawkes"},"content":{"rendered":"

Below is a list of 26 major cyberattacks on UK companies and public bodies since just 2020. There will of course be more which have gone unreported, or on a smaller scale. At the time of going to pixel, Jaguar Land Rover has still only launched a \u201cphased restart\u201d of its IT systems following a massive breach. Bear this in mind when Cabinet ministers regurgitate<\/a>\u00a0talking points about how they take cybersecurity seriously, and it will be very, very different when it comes to mandatory digital ID. Do you believe them?<\/p>\n

Read the full, long list below\u2026<\/p>\n

2020<\/p>\n

EasyJet \u2013 data breach
Hackers accessed the airline\u2019s booking system using stolen credentials.
Approximately 9 million customer records affected (names, emails, travel plans).
Around 2,200 had payment card details accessed.<\/p>\n

Virgin Media \u2013 data exposure
A misconfigured database left customer information publicly accessible for months.
Approximately 900,000 customer records exposed (names, addresses, contact details, subscription info).<\/p>\n

Interserve \u2013 data breach
A phishing attack on the outsourcing firm led to employee data being compromised.
Approximately 113,000 staff affected (contact details, bank info, national insurance numbers).<\/p>\n

2022<\/p>\n

NHS (via Advanced Software Group) \u2013 ransomware
Conti group encrypted systems of an NHS software supplier, disrupting services.
Millions of patients potentially affected.
Patient data accessed and leaked.
\u00a33 million ICO fine issued in 2025.<\/p>\n

British Army \u2013 account takeover
Official social media accounts were hijacked and used for unauthorised posts.<\/p>\n

South Staffordshire Water \u2013 data breach
Russian hackers accessed internal systems and leaked data in an extortion attempt.
Volume of exposed data not disclosed.<\/p>\n

MI5 \u2013 DDoS attack
Russian group launched a denial-of-service attack, briefly disabling the agency\u2019s website.
Temporary public-facing outage.<\/p>\n

2023<\/p>\n

Royal Mail \u2013 ransomware
LockBit group encrypted systems, halting international mail tracking.
Service disruption lasted several days.
Recovery costs estimated over \u00a310 million.<\/p>\n

Ministry of Defence \u2013 data theft
Russian hackers compromised a fencing contractor to access sensitive documents.
Thousands of MoD files leaked, including information on nuclear and prison sites.<\/p>\n

Electoral Commission \u2013 data breach (disclosed August)
Russian state actors accessed electoral registers through compromised email and file-sharing platforms.
Breach began in 2021.
Around 40 million voter records affected (names, addresses, voting history).<\/p>\n

2024<\/p>\n

Southern Water \u2013 unauthorised access
Hackers breached servers and extracted customer data.
Estimated 100,000 to 200,000 customers affected (names, billing info, addresses).<\/p>\n

NHS Dumfries and Galloway \u2013 ransomware
Inc Ransom group stole and leaked staff and patient data.
Around 150,000 households affected.
3 terabytes of data published, including x-rays, test results, and personal information.<\/p>\n

Leicester City Council \u2013 ransomware
Attack caused IT outages and led to the publication of sensitive files.
Over 1.3 terabytes of data leaked, including rent statements, passport scans and child protection records.<\/p>\n

Ministry of Defence \u2013 data breach
Chinese hackers targeted a payroll contractor and accessed personnel data.
Approximately 272,000 current and former staff affected (names, bank details, home addresses).<\/p>\n

NHS (via Synnovis pathology supplier) \u2013 ransomware
Qilin group disrupted pathology services in London and leaked patient data.
1,693 procedures and 10,054 appointments delayed.
Around 400 gigabytes of patient information leaked.<\/p>\n

Billericay School \u2013 ransomware
Attack disabled all IT systems and forced temporary school closure.
Student records compromised, including names, addresses, medical notes and parent contact information.<\/p>\n

NHS (via CrowdStrike outage) \u2013 software failure
A faulty update from CrowdStrike caused widespread IT failures across NHS systems.
Millions of patients indirectly affected through delayed or cancelled appointments and record access.<\/p>\n

Locata (housing platform) \u2013 phishing attack
A breach enabled phishing campaigns targeting tenants in Manchester, Salford and Bolton.
Thousands of residents targeted.<\/p>\n

Transport for London (TfL) \u2013 data breach
Suspicious activity exposed customer data through internal systems.
Around 5,000 customers potentially affected (contact details and possible payment information).<\/p>\n

2025<\/p>\n

Unknown UK business \u2013 data theft.
Hackers stole and leaked records from an unidentified company.
Approximately 18.8 million personal records exposed.<\/p>\n

Royal Mail (via Spectos supplier) \u2013 data breach
German contractor was compromised, impacting Royal Mail\u2019s UK operations.
Around 144 gigabytes of internal and customer data leaked (names, addresses, tracking information).<\/p>\n

Legal Aid Agency \u2013 data breach
Sensitive records from more than a decade of legal aid cases were compromised.
Included personal, legal and financial data.<\/p>\n

Marks & Spencer (M&S) \u2013 ransomware
DragonForce group encrypted systems, causing a prolonged disruption.
Customer data stolen.
Online operations were offline for 46 days.
Estimated \u00a3300 million financial impact.<\/p>\n

Co-op \u2013 ransomware and system crash
Attack forced 2,300 stores into manual operations.
Widespread disruption to point-of-sale and supply chain systems.
Possible customer data exposure.<\/p>\n

Heathrow Airport (via Collins Aerospace) \u2013 cyber-attack
Cyber-attack on a shared check-in and baggage system affected multiple European airports including Heathrow.
Hundreds of flights delayed across Heathrow, Brussels and Berlin.
Disruption suspected to be linked to a cyber-criminal group.<\/p>\n

Jaguar Land Rover \u2013 cyber-attack
Attack in August forced a full IT shutdown across global operations.
Production halted across three UK factories.
Staff sent home and suppliers impacted, with some at risk of collapse.
Back-end systems and invoicing have only partially resumed as of late September.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Below is a list of 26 major cyberattacks on UK companies and public bodies since just 2020. There…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":161784,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[84,73466,59,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-161783","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-digital-id","tag-gb","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161783","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=161783"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161783\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/161784"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=161783"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=161783"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=161783"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}