UK Ministry of Defence is under daily attack from the invisible enemy

UK DEFENCE SECRETARY Liam Fox is the latest cabinet minister to warn about cyber attackers going after government systems, saying that the Ministry of Defence (MoD) has joined the Treasury as a high-profile target.

He said that the MoD detected and blocked over a thousand attempts to hack into its computer system last year, according to the Telegraph, with attacks having doubled from 2009. Last month, chancellor George Osborne said a similar thing about the Treasury, which faced hundreds of hacking attempts in 2010.

Fox said, "Our systems are targeted by criminals, foreign intelligence services and other malicious actors seeking to exploit our people, corrupt our systems and steal information. The risks to defence are real, and I take them very seriously."

As usual for a politician, Fox didn't get into too much detail about who carried out the attacks. But experts generally believe the attacks come from both private hackers and foreign government agents, with China usually coming high on the list of suspects. Though the UK government usually keeps quiet about the sources of attacks, private sector firms such as Google have been more vocal in making thinly veiled accusations.

To combat threats, the UK government has earmarked £650 million for spending on cyber warfare capabilities, a considerable amount considering its current obsession with budget cuts and keeping the public purse strings tight. This apparently will work by integrating cyber warfare capabilities with the traditional ones such as invading foreign countries. µ