Director General Ken McCallum of Mi5 has made reference in his annual threat update of 2021, that hostile states seeking to spy on certain governments is still happening and is very real. What are hostile states and what constitutes a hostile act ? A hostile act (as defined by UK Govt) is one that threatens national security, threatens the economic well-being of the UK in a way relevant to the interests of national security, or is an act of serious crime. The act must also be linked to a foreign (hostile) state other than the UK.
Hostile States sometimes use people on the ‘inside’ to obtain privileged or secret information in order to make their hostile act easier to carry out. When we consider the protection of critical national infrastructure, we must also look at all our personnel roles in the organisation and identify which of those roles who have the greatest opportunity to damage our business or be corrupted by other hostile individuals. The UK Centre for the Protection of National Infrastructure (CPNI) recommends that organisations follow CPNI’s Principles of Protective Security Risk Management and Insider Threat Mitigation Programme –when implementing any new employment strategy.