26 September 2026
Executive Summary
The UK government is bringing senior representatives from critical national infrastructure and defence businesses into Whitehall for closed-door threat briefings as it strengthens preparations against potential sabotage, cyberattacks and other hostile activity.
Security Minister Dan Jarvis will chair a briefing involving industry bodies representing critical national infrastructure providers.
Armed Forces Minister Louise Sandher-Jones will separately meet organisations representing defence companies.
The Cabinet Office describes Russia as posing an “enduring and significant threat” to the UK and its interests.
The briefings follow heightened European concern around cyberattacks, sabotage and threats against infrastructure.
This does not mean the UK government has announced that a specific attack is imminent.
Rather, the development indicates that businesses operating strategically important infrastructure are increasingly being treated as part of national security preparedness.
UK Impact
Potentially relevant sectors include:
- Energy.
- Electricity.
- Water.
- Telecommunications.
- Transport.
- Ports.
- Defence.
- Data infrastructure.
- Financial services.
- Supply-chain providers supporting those sectors.
The risk also extends beyond organisations formally designated as critical national infrastructure.
Attackers may target suppliers whose services are essential to infrastructure operators.
Global Impact
European governments are increasingly strengthening the physical and cyber resilience of infrastructure.
Threat scenarios can include:
- Cyber intrusion.
- Sabotage.
- Physical attack.
- Communications disruption.
- Disinformation.
- Supplier compromise.
- Subsea infrastructure damage.
- Energy disruption.
Earlier this week Lithuania disclosed plans for unusually extensive physical protection around a new electricity substation linking Baltic power infrastructure with western Europe, including reinforced structures designed to protect critical equipment against drone attack.
The broader direction is therefore towards treating infrastructure resilience as both a commercial and national-security issue.
Our View
Businesses should avoid interpreting government security warnings as predictions of imminent attack.
But they should use them as a reason to test whether existing resilience assumptions remain appropriate.
Companies should ask:
- Which assets are genuinely critical?
- Which single asset could stop operations?
- Which suppliers are essential?
- Are backup systems physically separated?
- Could primary and backup systems be attacked simultaneously?
- Are cyber and physical security teams integrated?
- Are access controls regularly reviewed?
- Could remote systems be isolated quickly?
- Are staff trained to recognise suspicious activity?
- Are contractors subject to appropriate security controls?
- How quickly can critical equipment be replaced?
- Are specialist spare parts held?
- Is backup power available?
- Are communications resilient?
- Are crisis-management plans exercised?
- Does insurance respond to cyberattack, sabotage or state-linked events?
One of the most important questions concerns redundancy.
Two systems do not necessarily provide resilience if they occupy the same building, use the same power supply, depend upon the same telecommunications route or share the same software environment.
True resilience requires separation of failure points — not simply duplication of equipment.
Risk Indicator: HIGH – UK, CRITICAL INFRASTRUCTURE & SECURITY RESILIENCE
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The information contained within these Market Alerts is provided for general market awareness and informational purposes only. It does not constitute financial, legal, investment, regulatory or insurance advice. Whilst every effort has been made to ensure accuracy at the time of publication using multiple reputable and independently verified sources, geopolitical events, legislation, regulation and market conditions may change rapidly. Readers should obtain appropriate professional advice before acting upon any information contained herein.
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