Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department is taking to tackle cybercrime against retailers; and if she will make a statement.

Tackling cyber crime is at the heart of the Government’s National Cyber Strategy. The strategy was launched in December 2021 and presents the UK’s role as a responsible and democratic cyber power, protecting and promoting UK interests in, and through, cyberspace. The strategy commits £2.6bn of new investment to deliver objectives under five strategic pillars:- Ecosystem; Resilience; Technology; International; and, Threat.

The Cyber Aware campaign is a major national advertising campaign that aims to help businesses (as well as individuals) to protect themselves online. The campaign empowers and enables the public and micro businesses to understand the best ways to stay secure online and take the necessary protective actions; and supports wider efforts to combat the threat at source via the Suspicious Email Reporting Service (SERs), and through partnership interventions. This year’s campaign was launched on 18 March and is focusing on empowering citizens, microbusinesses and sole traders to keep their email accounts secure. Cyber Aware - NCSC.GOV.UK

The Governments’ Cyber Essentials Scheme provides the basic controls all businesses should implement to protect themselves. About Cyber Essentials - NCSC.GOV.UK

Further good advice and helpful products from Government include the 10 Steps to Cyber Security and the Cyber Information Sharing Partnership (CISP). 10 Steps to Cyber Security - NCSC.GOV.UK

We have also rolled out Regional Cyber Resilience Centres in each of the nine policing regions, and London.  These are a collaboration between police, public, private sector and academic partners to provide subsidised or free products and cyber security consultancy services to help Small and Medium Sized Enterprise and micro businesses protect themselves better in a digital age.

We have developed and we continue to innovate on a series of Active Cyber Defence measures. Active Cyber Defence is the principle of implementing security measures to strengthen the security of a network or system to make it more robust against attack. The National Cyber Security Centre’s Active Cyber Defence programme provides tools that are free at the point of use which help organisations to tackle, in a relatively automated way, a significant proportion of the cyber attacks that hit the UK.

Retailers (and other organisations) suffering a live cyber attack (in progress), can report directly to Action Fraud, the national reporting centre for cyber crime and fraud, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Action Fraud