29 May UK Energy Sector Cyber Security Strategy
London, (Oilandgaspress) Energy touches the heart of everyone’s lives in this country. It heats our homes, powers our businesses, fuels our economy and underpins the services we rely on every day. A secure, reliable energy system is not only essential to our economic prosperity, but fundamental to our national security. The UK continues to navigate a changing global landscape, increasing cyber threat and transformation to its energy system for the future. Ensuring that our energy remains affordable, resilient and secure is critical to protecting households, supporting growth, and safeguarding the country’s interests.
Great Britain starts from a position of strength. We have a resilient and reliable energy system, supported by world‑class expertise across government, regulators and industry. But parts of our infrastructure were not designed for today’s highly digital, interconnected and decentralised system. As we build new networks, deploy renewable technologies, and bring new actors into the market, we must ensure cyber security is built in from the start – not added as an afterthought.
The Energy Sector Cyber Security Strategy sets out what the government will do to protect the energy system and its consumers, and how we will partner with industry to mitigate cyber risks. Securing our energy system is a shared responsibility. I expect boards, executives and leaders across the energy sector to treat cyber risk with the same seriousness as safety, reliability and operational resilience. By working in partnership, we can secure the energy system we rely on today, while building a clean, digital and resilient energy system fit for the future – delivering Clean Power 2030 (CP2030), net zero and long‑term energy security. – Rt Hon Michael Shanks MP, Minister for Energy, Department of Energy Security and Net Zero
This strategy sets out a 4-year plan from 2026 to 2030 ensuring that:
cyber security risks to the energy sector are identified, assessed, understood and managed
cyber security and resilience is increased at pace across the sector, appropriate to the risks faced
response and recovery plans are in place and tested for cyber incidents, including sophisticated attacks from capable actors
cyber requirements are expanded in scope and depth, proportionate to the risk faced and keep pace with the evolving threat and system landscape
We will deliver the above by focusing on the following strategic outcomes.
Enhancing our understanding of threat, vulnerability, and risk:
develop and maintain a comprehensive understanding of the whole energy system and its component parts (including critical suppliers), highlighting dependencies, high impact points of failure and areas of risk concentration
carry out risk assessments to understand the impact of security threats to the system, identifying the key security risks and most critical components
Prevention through enhanced and accelerated resilience:
enable a secure net zero transition by addressing the evolving structure and future demands of the energy system, ensuring new assets are designed with security and resilience
where appropriate expanding cyber oversight, targets and monitoring across a broader range of energy players – proportionate to the risk they pose
ensure that the highest-impact operators have appropriate and proportionate levels of cyber resilience, utilising regulatory oversight to establish and monitor maturity targets
Strengthening preparedness, response and recovery:
facilitate improved detection capability across the sector to defend against the most sophisticated, high capability cyber actors
ensure that comprehensive, cross-cutting plans are in place to respond and recover to the threats faced and that plans are regularly tested and exercised with a focus on continuous improvement
Effective monitoring, regulation and enforcement:
Ofgem and DESNZ will ensure operators in scope of regulation are under appropriate oversight
the NESO and NCSC will assess resilience and provide recommendations to strengthen cyber assurance across the energy system
Fostering partnership, culture and skills:
working with government partners, private organisations, academia, and international partners to manage cyber risk effectively
cultivate a robust, risk driven cyber security posture within industry, expanding access to clearances and information sharing, and investing in the skills needed to secure our energy future
1.1 Cyber threat
The cyber threat has increasingly focused on CNI systems, as hacktivist groups and high capability state actors strive to compromise these systems for political effect and propaganda victories. Ransomware attacks continue to pose the most immediate and disruptive threat to UK CNI, with some state-linked cyber groups now targeting the industrial control systems that infrastructure relies on
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