Blunkett warns of cyber terrorist threat

Former home secretary highlights London 2012 Olympics as a potential target

Blunkett: Decisive leadership is needed

Former home secretary David Blunkett has warned of the threat to the London 2012 Olympics posed by cyber terrorists, caused by a “woeful lack of awareness” of what such an attack could achieve.

In excerpt from a speech Blunkett is due to give at the Infosec conference in London tomorrow, he is expected to highlight the threat to critical IT systems from organised crime.

"Cyber attack can take the form of disrupting both cutting-edge and more traditional forms of communication. This can be from outside the country but also using techniques of infiltrating into key communication channels and computer links, the necessary equipment to trigger complete meltdown of systems, as well as unauthorised access to data through sophisticated hacking," Blunkett is expected to say.

The MP will call for greater co-ordination between government, business and IT security experts to prepare for such a threat.

"A sophisticated attack of this sort would be both economically and commercially devastating but the ability to block it exists and by doing so to demonstrate that Britain is the best and safest place of e-commerce in the world,” he will say, according to advance reports of the text of the speech.

"Decisive leadership from government in partnership with business and those with security expertise is urgently needed. That is why it's crucial to examine what we can do now, what measures need to be put in place and how we need to work with those offering the expertise to get this right."

In February, Blunkett attacked the growth of the surveillance state in the UK. When home secretary, he led the introduction of ID cards.