Over 400 UK and international defence cyber specialists have taken part in the UK’s biggest cyber competition.

"Cyber war is not virtual war, it is real warfare capable of producing results previously only attainable through the use of strategic bombing", argues Rebecca Campbell in this submission to the UK Defence Journal.

It is understood that hackers have tried to break into the systems of researchers at AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford.

The exercise aims to train cyber defenders in their ability to defend NATO and national networks and will test decision making processes and procedures.

GCHQ has launched a cyber operation to disrupt disinformation around vaccines being spread by Russia and other hostile states, it has been reported.

The National Cyber Security Centre – a part of GCHQ – Fourth Annual Review reveals that the organisation defended the UK from 723 cyber incidents in the last year.

The Foreign Secretary has confirmed the UK will enforce asset freezes and travel bans on those involved.

The National Cyber Security Centre say that Russia has been warned by UK and its allies against further destructive cyber attacks.

The National Cyber Security Centre has issued an alert to the academic sector following a spate of online attacks against UK schools, colleges and universities.

Earlier in the year, US Senator Tom Cotton warned that the UK’s decision to allow Huawei to build aspects of its 5G network "raises too great a risk for us to have that advanced aircraft in any nation with this system", he said speaking of US F-35 deployments in the UK.