Keeping Britain safe from cyber attacks: Matt Hancock speech

The Minister for Cabinet Office gave a speech on the UK's cyber security strategy and keeping Britain safe from cyber attacks.

I’m very grateful to the Telegraph for asking me here to this crucial conference on cyber security.

As we’re guests of the Telegraph, I want to start with a little story about the telegraph. Not the paper, but the technology.

A century ago, the First World War was raging in Europe, and the Allies were desperate to bring America into the war on our side.

Then, in January 1917, the German ambassador to Mexico received an encrypted telegram from Berlin.

It instructed him to offer the Mexican government money and diplomatic support for an audacious invasion of the United States.

But this message was subject to one of the first and perhaps most influential cyber security breaches in history.

It didn’t matter that the idea was half-baked, that the Mexicans had no interest in invading Arizona. When the contents were revealed, American opinion was outraged.

Shortly after, Congress voted to join the war.

So why did the German high command entrust such a sensitive message to Western Union, then, as now, a wire transfer company?

Because they had failed to appreciate an obvious network vulnerability.

The subsea cable they were using did not travel directly from Europe.

Instead it went through Britain, stopping off at Land’s End, where the signal was boosted before being transmitted to America.

This meant it very easy for British Naval Intelligence to listen in on the traffic.

Once war broke out, any diplomatic telegrams passing through were copied down and dispatched to Room 40, the forerunner of GCHQ.

I mention this story as a warning against complacency.

Telegraphy was the email of its day: trusted and widely used, familiar rather than cutting edge.

People thought it was secure, but it wasn’t.

A hundred years on, our trusted communications are wireless, instantaneous and virtually cost-free. Data is stored in the Cloud, not in filing cabinets.