According to recent research from Bridewell, 95% of UK critical national infrastructure (CNI) organisations experienced a data breach in the last year. As part of its report, ‘Cyber Security in Critical National Infrastructure: 2025’, the company revealed over half (54%) reported financial losses exceeding £100,000 per breach, with cybersecurity upgrades, system recovery and increased operational costs all contributing to the bulk of expenses.
Findings from the report reinforced the growing cyber threats that are facing CNI organisations in the UK, more specifically ransomware, phishing, and unauthorised access, which are the three most frequent types of attack. One-third of organisations targeted by ransomware admitted to paying the ransom.
Other key findings from the report, conducted by Censuswide and surveying over 600 cybersecurity professionals in these organisations are as follows:
- Response times and detection priorities: the speed of incident response remains a key challenge, with only 22% of organisations able to respond to a ransomware attack within an hour, while 69% manage to respond within six hours. As a consequence, improving incident detection speed has emerged as the fastest-growing priority for UK CNI organisations over the past two years
- Cloud services are a prime target and data protection concerns loom: Cloud services have become the most targeted attack vector across IT and OT environments in UK CNI sectors according to the respondents, with web browsing and Internet access cited as the second main avenue for attack amongst these organisations. Data protection remains a significant concern, with 90% of organisations expressing worries about meeting compliance requirements
- AI-driven cyber threats on the rise, as is AI adoption itself: artificial intelligence is reshaping the cyber threat landscape, with AI-driven phishing appearing as the top AI-powered attack vector (with 83% of respondents citing it as a top concern). Automated hacking and AI-powered botnets follow closely behind. 95% of UK CNI organisations are integrating AI-driven tools into their operations
- Cybersecurity strategies and maturity concerns: in spite of 90% of respondents believing they have a mature IT cyber security strategy, only a quarter are following best practices for cyber risk assessments. Confidence in Operational Technology (OT) security maturity is even lower, with just 34% describing their OT security as ‘very mature’, compared with 44% for IT security
- Addressing the cyber security talent gap: to address the ongoing cybersecurity skills shortage, UK CNI organisations are focusing on reskilling current employees, outsourcing to external partners and developing apprenticeship programmes over the next two to three years
- Supply chain vulnerabilities persist: despite the growing reliance on third-party providers, only 42% of UK CNI organisations are ‘very confident’ in their ability to handle supply chain cyber threats. 57% of respondents experienced a supply chain attack in the past year. The top three supply chain attacks experienced were firmware attacks, data interception and tampering and third-party service provider breaches
“As cyber threats continue to evolve, UK CNI organisations must prioritise rapid incident detection and response, as well as bolster their cyber security maturity and strengthen resilience against supply chain risks,” said Anthony Young, CEO of Bridewell. “With AI taking a bigger role in both attacks and defences, organisations must remain proactive to safeguard critical infrastructure and national security, especially in a tumultuous geo-political climate.”
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