Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what estimate his Department has made of the cost to UK businesses of cyber attacks in each year since 2015.

Recent research commissioned by the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, as was, models the cost of significant cyber attacks to UK businesses at approximately £14.7 billion in 2024, equivalent to around 0.5% of UK GDP. This is an indicative estimate, using predominantly US data covering a range of private and public-sector organisations to estimate the cost of a significant cyber attack, combined with UK data on the number of businesses estimated to experience such attacks.

The government is clear that decisive action is required to tackle the increasing cyber threat. That is why at the Budget this month, the Chancellor announced an investment of £150 million into cyber defence, including a National Exposure and Real-Time Vulnerability Centre, expansion of public sector AI cyber defence and a national Cyber Shield.