Ransomware attacks have now topped online espionage as a national security threat, according to the head of the UK’s National Cyber Security Centre.

Lindy Cameron told London’s Royal United Services Institute today that while state-backed cyber activity such as online spying and the theft of intellectual property was a “malicious strategic threat to the UK’s national interests”, “the primary key threat is not state actors but cyber criminals”.

Ransomware incidents rose by more than 60 per cent to 305m in 2020, according to data from SonicWall. In the latest case, the clean energy company Invenergy said on Friday that it had been hacked but did “not intend to pay any ransom”, after Russia-linked hacking group REvil threatened to leak embarrassing details about its billionaire chief executive.