‘States don’t do hacking for fun’: NCSC expert urges businesses to follow geopolitics as defensive strategy
Business leaders need to stay up to date with geopolitics to keep their cybersecurity strategies up to date and mitigate the risks posed by state-backed hacker groups. This is the message that Paul Chichester, director of operations at the UK’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), delivered to attendees at a keynote session of Infosecurity Europe 2025. The call to action from Chichester came as states known to support threat actors and engage in cyber attacks of their own step up efforts to disrupt critical infrastructure Chichester said Russia’s cyber capabilities in particular have improved in recent years, with its invasion of Ukraine used as an opportunity to hone offensive cyber techniques. Along with Russia, Chichester focused on the threat China-backed groups pose to both public and private organizations. “I'll come back to this a few times, but states don't do hacking for fun,” Chichester said. “They do not do things for the sake of it. There is always a reason. We might not know the reason sometimes and that's quite a challenge for us, but we shouldn't assume that they're just doing it because they can.” Chichester urged businesses who are being targeted by a state APT to carefully consider why and to assess how geopolitics feeds into their defensive strategies.
