Prepare to do without IT at all, warns UK cyber chief

Companies must be prepared to operate without their IT systems, UK cyber Security The chief has warned amid increasing number of hackings.

Richard Horne, chief executive of the National Cyber ​​Security Centre, said “every organisation” should prepare for a potential attack, including planning for operating without the technology.

The warning comes amid a huge increase in the number of “nationally significant” cyber attacks, and hacks that have devastated M&S and Jaguar Land Rover, leaving them without vital systems for weeks.

“From local coffee shops to providers of critical national infrastructure, every organization must understand their performance, build their security and make a plan for how they will continue to operate without their IT (and rebuild that IT at speed) to undergo an attack,” Horn wrote in the introduction to a new report.

The National Cyber ​​Security Center (NCSC) – part of GCHQ – dealt with 204 “nationally significant” attacks in the 12 months to the end of August 2025, up from 89 in the previous year.

The Government has now written to the CEOs and chairmen of major businesses, including all FTSE350 companies, highlighting the importance of the Government and owners working together to protect the UK economy.

The letters, signed by Ms Kendall, Chancellor Rachel Reeves, Business Secretary Peter Kyle, Security Minister Dan Jarvis and the heads of the NCSC and National Crime Agency, call on bosses to take “concrete action” to manage cyber risks.

Ms Kendall said: “We have seen first-hand the disruption caused by cyber attacks on major British companies, impacting their bottom line and putting jobs at risk.

“The government is ready to help, but cyber security is an issue that demands leadership from both chief executives and the boardroom.”

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NCSC chief executive Richard Horne said: “Cyber ​​security is now a matter of business survival and national resilience.

“With more than half of the incidents handled by NCSC considered nationally significant, and a 50% increase in highly significant attacks in the last year, our collective exposure to serious impacts is increasing at an alarming pace.

“The best way to protect against these attacks is for organizations to make themselves as hard targets as possible.

“This demands urgency from every business leader: hesitation is a vulnerability, and the future of their business depends on the action they take today. The time to act is now.”

Company owners have been urged to make cyber resilience a board-level responsibility, sign up to the NCSC’s Early Warning System and use the Cyber ​​Essentials plan to establish security across supply chains, as recommended by the Cyber ​​Governance Code of Practice.

The NCSC has also launched a new Cyber ​​Action Toolkit to help sole traders and small companies take basic security measures.

Additional reporting by agencies