Thu, 4 Nov 2010

Tax & benefit systems at risk of cyber attack

Online tax and benefits systems could be the target for hostile cyber attacks, Iain Lobban, the chief of the Government’s secret surveillance centre GCHQ, said in a speech last month.

The head of the normally secretive agency gave an unprecedented public warning on the vulnerability of UK citizens as well as businesses, that could increase in scale as more payments are moved online.

He said that online tax and benefit payment systems could be processing more than £100bn before long. The growth in electronic crimes is ‘disturbing’, he added. The number of UK credit card details that have been stolen and put on sale for less than £2 each runs into the thousands. Just one computer network is understood to have been responsible for the theft of online banking details from more than 12 million people from all over the world, he added.

Individuals are at risk form a ‘disturbing’ growth in electronic crimes.

The GCHQ chief warned of the use of cyber techniques ‘by one nation on another to bring diplomatic or economic pressure to bear’ on others. The timing of the speech was unfortunate for the Government and is the most explicit warning to date from an intelligence chief about the threat of internet based attacks.

His speech coincided with the end of a discussion period over its plans to move the PAYE system to a central database for the gross-to-net calculation and payment to individual employees (see page 5 and conference reports, page 28).