North Korea will launch a "greater scale of cyber attacks" on the UK next year, a British security expert has claimed, reports Express.co.uk. Robert Hannigan, the ex-director of the Gover-nment Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), has warned that the WannaCry ransomware attack on the NHS in May is just the start of despot leader Kim Jong-un's cyber war.
He said: "WannaCry was really a reasonably sophisticated tool, used rather ineptly. They will learn from that. People always do. "They will get better at using those tools, and there are far more sophisticated tools out there, and they will start to use them.
"The technical sophistication of the threats is going to get worse, without question. "We'll see more ransomware, we'll see a greater scale of attacks." The security expert added that greater state involvement in Pyongyang will lead to "more destructive" attacks and will result in "more of what I call collateral damage".
Hannifin went on: "If you look at the NHS, nobody would seriously believe that the North Koreans wanted to attack the NHS, and not least because they were never going to pay a ransom.
"These were collateral casualties, if you like, in cyber space. "The critical thing is that there are players out there now behaving badly enough not really to care.
"Either because they don't have a stake in the international system, or they have a stake but actually, that's a threshold of damage that they can live with in order to deliver whatever effect they want to deliver. "And they would expect the rest of the world just to live with that.
"So I think we will see more of that unfortunately more collateral damage and more unintended consequences." The security expert explained that the rogue state is not the only force to fear in the cyber realm, discussing the threat imposed by Islamic State on the UK.
He declared: "Groups like ISIL love the idea of a destructive attack. "They are a very long way from having the capability. "But, as always with terrorism, intent and capability will meet at some point.
"The challenge for Government and for industry, and particularly for critical national infrastructure providers, is to make sure that by the time those two converge, we are better armed against attack. But it is bound to happen at some stage."