{"id":605975,"date":"2026-05-27T04:14:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-27T04:14:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/605975\/"},"modified":"2026-05-27T04:14:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-27T04:14:09","slug":"russia-relentlessly-targeting-critical-infrastructure-democracy-gchq","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/605975\/","title":{"rendered":"Russia ‘relentlessly targeting’ critical infrastructure, democracy – GCHQ"},"content":{"rendered":"

Keast-Butler says GCHQ is working tirelessly to fend off cyber attacks and counter what she calls “reckless sabotage and assassination attempts”.<\/p>\n

She adds that: “In the face of such aggression and chaos, GCHQ is working tirelessly with intelligence and Defence partners to degrade and reduce the Russian threat.”<\/p>\n

The Kremlin, which denies responsibility, has been blamed for the murder of former KGB officer Alexander Litvinenko<\/a> using radioactive Polonium slipped into his tea in a London hotel in 2006. <\/p>\n

It was also blamed for the attempted assassination of a former Russian military intelligence officer, Sergei Skripal<\/a>, in Salisbury in 2018, using the lethal nerve agent Novichok smeared onto his front door handle.<\/p>\n

More recently, since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and the UK’s ongoing support for Ukraine, Moscow has been accused of waging a “hybrid war” against Western countries.<\/p>\n

In her speech, the GCHQ boss is expected to say: “As we remain steadfast in our support for Ukraine, Putin is going backwards on the battlefield.”<\/p>\n

Hundreds of so-called Russian “shadow fleet” vessels have also entered UK waters since the prime minister threatened to intercept them earlier this year, a BBC Verify analysis suggested.<\/a><\/p>\n

China, she will say, is now a science and tech superpower with sophisticated capabilities “across their intelligence, cyber and military agencies”. <\/p>\n

When it comes to global advances in AI and technology, she says, there is a narrowing window for the UK and its allies to stay ahead. She characterises it as “the ground beneath our feet” shifting. <\/p>\n

She sees collaboration with the tech industry, academia and even the public as key to staying abreast of advances in cyber security. <\/p>\n

GCHQ spends much of its time combating organised criminal networks bent on targeting vulnerable British firms with phishing attacks and ransomware. <\/p>\n

Adopting the phrase “from boardrooms to living rooms”, Keast-Butler urges everyone to look to their own cyber security <\/p>\n

“At home that means taking important action now to switch passwords for passkeys, and for wider society, it means hard-wiring security into new technologies, protecting supply chains and making cyber security 10 times more urgent,” she will say.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Keast-Butler says GCHQ is working tirelessly to fend off cyber attacks and counter what she calls “reckless sabotage…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":605976,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-605975","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/605975","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=605975"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/605975\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/605976"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=605975"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=605975"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=605975"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}