It's time we treat hackers like the terrorists they are

This is why the recent attack on carmaker Jaguar Land Rover should be a national concern.

Not only has the business itself been affected, but so too have its hardworking employees and, indeed, the employees of smaller JLR suppliers. One firm has been forced to lay off hundreds of workers due to the halt in production.

These are people’s livelihoods, destroyed by the destructive actions of teenagers in so-called hacking gangs.

JLR’s British factories in Solihull, Merseyside, Halewood, and Wolverhampton remain idle, as do its overseas factories in the US and elsewhere. This is the third such week, with another in sight.

The cost to JLR has been estimated to be between £5m and £10m per day as it is unable to produce its roughly 1,000 vehicles a day.

JLR is not the first British business to have been attacked. British retailers Marks & Spencer and Co-op were targeted earlier this year, costing both hundreds of millions of pounds as their respective IT systems took months to recover fully.

Then, across the Channel, we learn that French luxury group, Kering, which owns brands like Gucci, was also a victim of hacking. An estimated 56 million customer records were stolen, including spending histories and addresses. Ransom payments were demanded. French authorities arrested four people.

Here, the National Crime Agency arrested four people in relation to the M&S and Co-op attack. The worrying part is the age of suspects - between 17 and 20 years old.

This terrorising of British businesses can no longer be dismissed as pranksters fooling about. It is clear the cost to the economy and jobs is no small figure. The prosecution of perpetrators should be ferocious.

Cybercrimes should be treated as an attack on our national security. The full force of the National Crime Agency and other counter-terror style disruption powers like asset freezes, sanctions, travel bans, and naming and shaming should be deployed against these organised hacking gangs.

Then the Government needs to break the business model of such groups, which would involve starving them of ransom payments. This means giving serious consideration to creating a dedicated UK crypto-tracing unit with the power to seize wallets, block exchanges, and claw back illicit profits.

Apart from the devastating blow this has caused JLR, the other disheartening fact is that many of these hackers seem to be young. Enlisting their IT know-how to help, not hurt, British businesses would be a better way of utilising their skills.

It is shameful they choose to be hostile towards their fellow countrymen and women instead.

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Dr Neil Shastri-Hurst is the Conservative Member of Parliament for Solihull West and Shirley.

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