CHAPTER 3: THREATS
and politically. They recruit human agents and use cyber and technical operations to
target UK interests.
3.20.
The scale and extent of hostile foreign state targeting of the UK means that the
potential for future damage of UK interests is high and growing. The spread of the
digital world is providing states with many more operational opportunities. The human,
physical and cyber assets used by hostile states are often coordinated to enable or
complement each other. Cyber espionage allows information to be stolen remotely,
cheaply and on an industrial scale at relatively little risk to the hostile state’s
intelligence officers or its agents. Whatever is thought of Edward Snowden’s actions,
they demonstrate the impact that can be inflicted by a single well-placed individual
with wide network access.14
Cyber threats
3.21.
A range of hostile actors make use of cyber methods, including online criminals,
fraudsters, or money launderers; terrorists threatening violent attacks or disruption of
public services and websites, and hostile states conducting cyber espionage to steal
information covertly. In many respects the proliferation of online technologies and our
increasing reliance on the internet in our day to day lives, and to conduct business,
has created a rich pool of opportunities for those seeking to harm UK interests, and
has lowered the bar to entry to some actors by providing a cheap, convenient, and
deniable way of conducting their activities. I was told of repeated attacks by hostile
foreign states on UK Government and industry.
Crime and public safety
3.22.
Recorded crime has fallen dramatically in recent years: the Crime Survey for England
and Wales [CSEW] recorded a total of 7 million crimes committed against resident
adults in the year to September 2014, as against 19 million in 1995.15 There have
been similar trends across the western world. Such figures do not, however, tell the
whole story.
Organised crime
3.23.
Organised crime was estimated by the NCA to be worth £24 billion in 2013, and be
perpetrated by 5,800 active organised crime groups in the UK comprising around
40,600 individuals. It includes trafficking and dealing in drugs, people, weapons and
counterfeit goods; sophisticated theft and robbery; fraud and other forms of financial
crime. It also includes organised child sexual exploitation. Much organised crime is
conducted online or is cyber-enabled.
3.24.
In some ways organised crime is more complex than terrorism. It is characterised by
violence or its threat and but also often depends on the assistance of corrupt,
negligent or complicit professionals, notably lawyers, accountants and bankers.
14
15
Evidence from MI5, April 2015.
Office for National Statistics [ONS], A stocktake of crime statistics in England and Wales, January 2015.
The ONS describes the CSEW as “a valuable measure, on a consistent basis, of trends over time”.
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