TalkTalk CEO fires cyber arms race warning after website hack

TalkTalk’s chief executive has warned that the UK could be facing a cyber arms race, revealing that she called on experts in defence as a response to the firm’s recent website hack.

Dido Harding reached out to BAE Systems, a company which provides cyber security technology to government agencies, after the website attack which resulted in the theft of customer data.

She also said that she did not know how many of the firm’s customers have been affected and said that every UK firm is vulnerable.

Police are looking into the recent TalkTalk attack, which the telecommunications company said had an impact on its website and not its “core systems”.

Baroness Harding was speaking to the Times when she made her comments. She said that cyber criminals are educating themselves in how to attack systems.

The firm has claimed that data breached by the hackers would not enable criminals to access bank accounts, since complete details of credit cards are not held in the system and no account passwords have been accessed.

The Baroness added:

“This is happening to a huge number of organisations all the time. The awful truth is that every company, every organisation in the UK needs to spend more money and put more focus on cyber security – it’s the crime of our era.”

For UK firms to offset the vulnerability described by the Baroness Harding, they need to take action and ensure that they make cyber security jobs available to trained professionals.