Data Centres as Critical as National Grid and Water Systems, Says Government

Cables on servers at an internet data centre in Frankfurt am Main, western Germany, on July 25, 2018. Yann Schreiber/AFP/Getty Images

The government has classified data centres as Critical National Infrastructure (CNI), putting them on a par with the National Grid and the defence sector.

By making them part of the UK’s CNI, data centres will receive greater government support in the event of critical incidents, such as cyber attacks, IT blackouts, adverse weather conditions, and other disasters.

Data centres are the buildings which store the data generated in the UK, and can include information ranging from a person’s pictures on their mobile phone to NHS patients’ records and other sensitive information.

With this designation—which covers both the physical data centres and cloud operators that use them, like Microsoft Azure—the industry will have a dedicated CNI data infrastructure team of government officials who will monitor for potential threats and will provide access to agencies like the National Cyber Security Centre.

For example, if there were a cyber attack on a data centre holding NHS patients’ information, the government would intervene to ensure contingencies were put in place to mitigate the risk to services, such as those which could affect hospital appointments.

Technology Secretary Peter Kyle said on Thursday that data centres were “the engines of modern life” which power the digital economy and keep information safe.

“Bringing data centres into the Critical National Infrastructure regime will allow better coordination and cooperation with the government against cyber criminals and unexpected events,” Kyle said.

There are around a dozen NCI sectors in the UK including telecommunications, transportation, civil nuclear, finance, and food, and this will be the first time the list has been updated since 2015.

2,000 Potential Cyber Attack Signals Every Second

The UK is home to the highest number of data centres in Europe and recent cyber attacks and other incidents have highlighted the need to protect this infrastructure.

In July, the global CrowdStrike outage took out 60 percent of GP offices’ IT systems, meaning they could not access patients’ details or book appointments. The outage affected surgeries for days afterwards, with a knock-on effect on chemists, which struggled to process the backlog of prescriptions which flooded them after systems went back online.

On June 3, cyber criminals attacked blood testing service provider Synnovis with ransomware, affecting IT systems at several London hospitals, resulting in more than 10,000 appointments being postponed by August. The NHS later confirmed that the hackers had published some of the stolen data online.

Also on Thursday, major telecommunications operator BT revealed that they log 2,000 signals of potential cyber attacks every second, saying that according to its latest data, there had been a 1,234 percent increase in new malicious scanners across its networks in the last year.

BT says it is likely due to cyber criminals moving to AI-powered automated bots to scan for vulnerabilities.

The telecoms giant said defence, financial services, and IT were the sectors most targeted in these attacks. These are obvious targets for hack attempts, but BT said that other areas, such as education, hospitality, and retail, were increasingly being targeted because they are perceived to focus less on internet security.

AWS to Invest £8 Billion in UK

The government hopes that the inclusion of data centres in the critical infrastructure will boost business confidence in establishing and growing their data hosting operations in the UK.

On Thursday, data company DC01UK submitted plans to construct Europe’s largest data centre in Hertfordshire, investment worth £3.75 billion and which could create 700 local jobs as well as support nearly 14,000 data and tech jobs across the country.

Earlier this week, Amazon Web Services (AWS)—the world’s largest cloud service provider—also announced plans to invest £8 billion in the UK over the next five years on building, operating, and maintaining data centres.

AWS said AI and cloud computing were the drivers for this need in the investment, because the development and maintenance of new AI tools requires large amounts of power and space.

Tanuja Randery, vice president and managing director for AWS in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, said that the next few years could be “among the most pivotal for the UK’s digital and economic future, as organisations of all sizes across the country increasingly embrace technologies like cloud computing and AI to help them accelerate innovation, increase productivity, and compete on the global stage.”

“We’re proud to announce our plans to invest £8 billion in digital and AI infrastructure over the next five years to help meet the growing needs of our customers and partners, and support the transformation of the UK’s digital economy,” Randery said.

PA Media contributed to this report.