Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what recent assessment his Department has made of the trends in the level of cyber attacks originating from outside the UK from (a) government and (b) private sources.

We take the growing threat of cyber attacks on our networks and systems extremely seriously, whatever the source, and are taking action to defend against increasingly sophisticated attacks. Our systems are regularly targeted by criminals, foreign intelligence services and other malicious actors seeking to exploit Ministry of Defence (MOD) personnel, disrupt MOD business and operations, corrupt our systems and steal information. This is not unique to the MOD; other Government Departments, industry and business are also affected. However, we do not reveal specific details of trends in order to safeguard national security.