Britain is at risk from a terrorist attack on the computer systems controlling power stations, water plants and telecom networks, MPs were warned yesterday.
Security chiefs and academics said that there was a “chronic shortage” of experts to tackle the growing threat of cyber attacks, while ministers will announce today that one in three adults has been the victim of online crime in the past year.
Giving evidence on Britain’s cyber security strategy to the Public Accounts Committee, Dr Thomas Rid, of King’s College London, voiced fears that the Government did not know how many critical infrastructure control systems were vulnerable to attack.
He said the only reason the UK had not suffered such an assault so far was because al-Qaeda was currently “too