Yesterday Government ministers along with the National Cyber Security Centre and the National Crime Agency wrote to the UK’s leading companies urging them to take action on cyber security.
The letter says hostile cyber activity in the UK is growing more intense, frequent and sophisticated. In light of recent cyber incidents, the Government is urging large businesses to take three key actions to improve their cyber resilience:
- Making cyber resilience a Board-level responsibility using the Cyber Governance Code of Practice
- Signing up for the NCSC’s Early Warning service to receive timely alerts of potential cyber attacks impacting their systems
- Using the Cyber Essentials scheme to ensure foundational technical protections are in place across their supply chains
Please see the attached letter. You can also read the letter online, and the accompanying press release. Please do share within your organisations and with stakeholders.
In addition, the NCSC published their annual review yesterday, along with the new Cyber Action Toolkit for small businesses, which is designed to help sole traders and small organisations put in place some of the basic cyber security measures that help guard against the most common cyber threats..
Technology Secretary Liz Kendall said:
“We’ve seen firsthand the disruption caused by cyber-attacks on major British companies, hitting their bottom line and putting jobs at risk. The Government stands ready to help, but cyber security is an issue that demands leadership both from chief executives and right across the boardroom.
“It’s in that vein I am calling on them to take immediate action. We need companies to make sure they are better protected and better able to recover quickly if the worst happens.
“We are providing clear advice and practical tools, but with threats growing in scale and sophistication, business leaders need to step up their defences now and treat this as a strategic priority.”
We would encourage all businesses to seize on government support to protect themselves from cyber attacks, as the number of nationally significant incidents rises to an average of four every week. The National Cyber Security Centre – part of GCHQ – unveiled the rising number of attacks in its Annual Review. The agency dealt with 204 attacks in the three most serious categories in the 12 months to August 2025, more than doubling from 89 in the previous year.
We know that the economic strengths of the South West lies across a range of sectors, and that it is home not only to FTSE 350 companies, but also their supply chains and a huge array of smaller companies – ensuring they improve their cyber resilience will be key to maintaining and developing the region’s economic growth.