No. 10 quickly asserted that the meltdown at National Air Traffic Services was a technical issue rather than a cyber attack. This was presumably meant to be reassuring. It is anything but. It speaks, once more, of a Britain with creaking infrastructure, where national paralysis has become a regular occurrence. The highest tax revenues in peacetime history have not created a properly functioning country.
The breakdown was caused by a single mis-filed flight plan. That such havoc can result from one trivial event does little credit to the organisation entrusted with our airspace. This week’s event may not be a cyber attack, but hostile states and organisations will be taking note. If it is so easy to bring air traffic to a virtual standstill, then we lay ourselves open to the kind of attack that is likely to be an integral part of modern warfare.
Britain is the only country in Europe that has not managed to return its workforce to pre-pandemic levels
The government has been too lax on the issue of cyber security for far too long.
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