Mad Vlad Putin could “turn out the lights for millions” of Brits through a blitz of cyber attacks, a cabinet minister will warn today.
Pat McFadden is to tell a Nato conference that the Russian leader could shut down our power grids with the strikes.
He is set to warn that the Kremlin is “exceptionally aggressive and reckless in the cyber realm” and wants to gain a “strategic advantage and degrade the states that support Ukraine ”. Mr McFadden, who oversees policy on national security and state threats, fears Mad Vlad is plotting a “destabilising and debilitating” electronic strike on the UK.
READ MORE: Stunned cops find ‘visibly startled gnome’ made of party drug MDMA in raid
READ MORE: Noodles doping plot theory over Olympics swimmers branded ‘James Bond fiction’
And the attack by cyber crooks on infrastructure and firms could deal a hammer blow to our economy.
Mr McFadden is expected to say the Russian military and its “unofficial army of cyber criminals and hacktivists” have “not just stepped up their attacks, but widened their targets to a number of Nato members and partners” in the past year.
“In the UK, Russia has targeted our media, our telecoms, our political and democratic institutions and our energy infrastructure,” he will say at the summit in London.
“Military hard power is one thing. But cyber war can be destabilising and debilitating. With a cyber attack, Russia can turn the lights off for millions of people. It can shut down the power grids. This is the hidden war Russia is waging with Ukraine.”
Mr McFadden is set to hold crunch talks with business chiefs and security officials this week to discuss tightening their cyber defences.
Meanwhile, work and pensions secretary Liz Kendall told Sky News that Mr McFadden was right to say “there is not only the open military war with Russia as the aggressor, but there is also a hidden cyber war”.
(Image: Getty Images)
The warning comes after Putin bragged last week that his army could target the UK in response to Ukraine launching British-made Storm Shadow missiles.
He boasted they tested a new intermediate-range missile in a strike on Ukraine and that it could use the weapon against countries that allowed their missiles to strike Russia.
It comes after two NHS hospital trusts in London were hacked this summer, causing more than 800 planned operations and 700 outpatient appointments to be delayed.
Last month, pro-Russian hackers claimed to have targeted several councils.
A group named NoName057(16) boasted it had knocked out the websites of the Salford, Bury, Trafford and Tameside councils by flooding their websites with internet traffic.
You can get email updates on the day’s biggest stories straight to your inbox by signing up for our newsletters.