Security News > 2021 > May > UK govt seeks advice on defending against supply-chain cyberattacks
Today, the UK government has announced a call for advice on defending against software supply-chain attacks and ways to strengthen IT Managed Service Providers across the country.
The move comes after last week when President Biden had issued an executive order to increase cybersecurity defenses across the U.S. The government's invitation to provide feedback that will be open for almost two months comes at a time of prominent cyberattacks such as, the Colonial Pipeline incident, the Codecov supply-chain attack, and ransomware attacks on mission-critical organizations [1, 2] that continue to grow.
Starting today, the Department for Digital, Culture, Media, and Sport is seeking advice on measures to increase cybersecurity efforts across the UK from firms that both procure and provide digital services.
"Firms should follow free government advice on offer. They must take steps to protect themselves against vulnerabilities and we need to ensure third-party kit and services are as secure as possible," continued Mr. Warman.
Examining the critical role of MSPs in the UK's supply chains across all sectors of the economy, including government and critical national infrastructure, and building a security framework for MSPs. The need to focus on strengthening IT vendors is important as ransomware operators have recently targeted MSPs to mass-infect all of their clients in a single attack, as reported earlier by BleepingComputer.
The government's request for input comes at a time when, more recently, prominent cyber incidents like the Colonial Pipeline attack and the Codecov supply-chain incident are under the spotlight, and multi-million dollar ransomware attacks on mission-critical organizations like Ireland's Health Services continue to grow.