The UK is at increased risk of further cyber attacks on UK hospitals and High Street retailers because of the Trump administration’s cuts to US intelligence programs, a leading former US security official has warned.
Cody Barrow is a former intelligence officer within the Pentagon and a founding director of the Department of Defense’s US Cyber Command (USCC), which has responsibility for protecting US military networks from cyber attacks.
Barrow who has worked closely with his British counterparts in GCHQ, Britain’s communications intelligence agency, believes that Trump’s “politically charged” cuts to the agencies he helped build will have a direct impact on UK cyber defences.
Speaking to The i Paper, Barrow fears it will mean last year’s Russian cyber attacks on the NHS are much more likely to reoccur.
He said: “The UK will lose access to sharing about trans-Atlantic supply chain security. That could lead to, you, God forbid, something like the NHS incident all over again because now the UK and its non-US allies need to be able to uncover these things on their own.”
Since taking office in the White House, Trump has made scathing cuts to US cyber defences including axing vital contracts with private-sector partners and freezing recruitment
A further agency within the Department of Homeland Security, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), was also hit by deep cuts to its funding, staffing, and private contracts.
Both agencies work hand-in-glove with UK spies to defend against global cyber criminals and state sponsored attacks.
Barrow has first-hand experience of UK, US cooperation. During his career in US intelligence, he was deployed to Afghanistan to counter propaganda as part of an integrated US cyber operation with UK counterparts.
“I served with GCHQ counterparts in Afghanistan and the National Security Agency,” he said. “We were so closely embedded with each other that with some exceptions, we were effectively the same team.”
Barrow believes the close cooperation between the UK and US had led to the successful disruption of international cyber cartels. He worries that recent attacks on retailers like M&S, Harrods and The Co-Op will be much more difficult to thwart.
Barrow said the attacks showed how hackers were now using artificial intelligence to build convincing methods in order to dupe potential victims.
“You’re now contending with this mainly English-speaking set of actors,” Barrow said. “New techniques leveraging AI for voice fishing or fishing, deep fakes that seem more real and since they’re probably native English speakers, they know how to exploit that more effectively as we saw with the social engineering with UK retail.”
The former intelligence official the US National Security Agency (NSA) warned that Trump’s cuts have put the long tradition of trans-Atlantic intelligence cooperation in jeopardy. Barrow believes it poses a significant risk to British national security particularly where it threatens the Five Eye intelligence sharing alliance between US, UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
He said: “I think that the strategic impact from the respective headquarters governance could have an effect on missions, could have an effect on sharing and trust between GCHQ, NSA or the respective governments.
“If we are seeing programmes being cut on the US side that normally require Five Eyes support, then those same objectives need to be met a different way.
“It’s very difficult from a global allied infrastructure perspective to duplicate some of the capabilities that the US has as UK partners. It’s very, very difficult. So I’m not sure how that would be achieved.”
Donald Trump and Elon Musk have made sweeping cuts to US cyber operations (Photo: Jim Watson)Trump and America first
In his first 100 days, Donald Trump launched repeated cuts to US cyber programmes.
Last month, General Timothy Haugh, who headed US Cyber Command – and the US National Security Agency – was removed from his job after Laura Loomer, a far-right activist and outside adviser to Trump, called for his sacking during her Oval Office meeting.
square CYBER SECURITY Big ReadUK election interference threat grows after Trump's cyber defence cuts
Read More
It formed part of sweeping cuts made by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (Doge).
The US cyber teams facing cuts have regularly worked with UK officials to take on state-backed hackers and international cyber cartels.
In 2023, the UK worked in tandem with US agents to uncover attempts by Russian state cyber actors to interfere in UK politics and democratic processes.
The operation exposed how a Russian cybercrime group, Star Blizzard, had been “almost certainly” a subordinate of Russian intelligence which was targeting UK parliamentarians with malicious cyber attacks, compromising leaked UK-US trade documents, and selectively leaking information pilfered from hacked journalists, think tanks, and universities.
Barrow says that within “weeks or months” UK agencies will be unclear on who from the US side they will need to be in touch with.
“Who do these UK counterparts call?”, he asked. “In Trump 2.0, we are seeing a complete dedication to America first foundational policy.”
He added: “I’m actually not sure that we’ll go back to normal in four years. So you may as well used to the fact that at least for the next three and a half years, the fundamental policy of the United States government is America first, and they’re deadly serious, and trying to find a way around it is just going to lead to suffering.”
NSA director Gen Timothy Haugh was fired alongside his deputy and five senior aides at the National Security Council (Photo: Nathan Posner/Anadolu via Getty Images)In response to the incidents the UK’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) has informed High Street retailers to update their computer security, while Pat McFadden, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, said the attacks serve as a “wake up call”.
Announcing a £16 million package to boost defence at home and abroad, McFadden said: “Cyber attacks are not a game. Not a clever exercise. They are serious organised crime. The purpose is to damage and extort.”
Barrow said McFadden’s commitment to cyber defences was “extremely necessary”.
Over the past weeks, GCHQ has repeatedly reiterated the strength of cooperation with US agencies.
A UK security source said the intelligence relationship between the two countries is “based on mutual trust” and so officials will be working hard to maintain operational standards behind the scenes.
Read More Details
Finally We wish PressBee provided you with enough information of ( I ran US cyber security at the Pentagon – here’s why the UK is prone to hackers )
Also on site :
- 'Law & Order's Mariska Hargitay Celebrates Landmark Accomplishment
- Disneyland raises hopes for future Toy Story Midway Mania makeovers
- Grammy-Winning Icon, 75, Is Unrecognizable in Throwback Birthday Post