The internet is broken – and we can no longer do without it

‘The internet is broken,’ a corporate chieftain told me last week. It was an arresting remark, but he did not mean that his home Wi-Fi hub had gone down and required a jab with a paperclip, as mine frequently does. He meant that the entire web has become so insecure — so plagued by industrial-scale scammers, viral anarchists and, according to the US Department of Justice, Chinese military hackers — that it can no longer be trusted for any form of confidential data transmission, from online payments to state secrets.

By way of confirmation, as I type, in comes an email with a toxic fake ‘invoice’ attached. Among the last few days’ worth of deleted items, I can see half a dozen well-crafted attempts at data theft or worse, including ‘Click here’ messages purporting to be from BT, Santander and Paypal, and a ‘Thought you might be interested in this’ link from a hacked lady member of the House of Lords.