NCSC Warns of Increased Russian Hacktivist Threat to UK Online Services
The UK government has issued an urgent cybersecurity alert as Russian-aligned hacktivist groups intensify their campaign of digital disruption against British infrastructure and public services.
The National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) warned that these ideologically motivated attackers are targeting critical systems with increasingly sophisticated tactics, moving beyond simple website disruptions to potentially dangerous operational technology breaches.
Jonathon Ellison NCSC Director of National Resilience, said in the announcement, “We continue to see Russian-aligned hacktivist groups targeting UK organisations and although denial-of-service attacks may be technically simple, their impact can be significant. By overwhelming important websites and online systems, these attacks can prevent people from accessing the essential services they depend on every day. All organisations, especially those identified in today’s [Jan. 19] alert, are urged to act now by reviewing and implementing the NCSC’s freely available guidance to protect against DoS attacks and other cyber threats.”
What’s happening?
The scale of this threat became crystal clear when the NCSC revealed it handled 204 nationally significant cyberattacks in just the past year — more than double the 89 incidents from the previous year. This represents four major attacks hitting UK organizations every single week, with local government bodies and critical infrastructure operators bearing the brunt of the assault.
The timing is no coincidence. These Russian-state aligned groups are specifically targeting organizations they perceive as supporting Ukraine’s resistance to Russia’s invasion. The attacks aim to overwhelm websites and disable essential services through denial-of-service campaigns that can cost organizations significant time, money, and operational resilience to defend against and recover from.
The notorious NoName057(16) group, which has been active since March 2022, is now collaborating with other pro-Russian factions to target not just websites but operational technology systems that control physical infrastructure, recent intelligence reveals. Despite a major international operation called “Operation Eastwood” that disrupted the group’s activities six months ago by arresting members and taking down 100 servers, the group has resurged with renewed determination.
The hidden danger
While these denial-of-service attacks might seem technically straightforward, they’re becoming a gateway to far more dangerous intrusions. The NCSC noted that although these attacks are typically low in sophistication, successful campaigns can disrupt entire systems and prevent people from accessing essential services they depend on daily.
International law enforcement revealed how these groups are exploiting vulnerable remote access systems to infiltrate operational technology systems. Pro-Russian hacktivist groups including Cyber Army of Russia Reborn, Z-Pentest, and Sector16 have successfully targeted water treatment facilities, energy systems, and food production infrastructure in both Europe and North America, causing actual physical damage in some cases, CISA reported last month.
These attackers operate through Telegram channels and use automated tools like DDoSia to enable anyone to participate in attacks, regardless of technical expertise. The group primarily operates through these channels and has used platforms such as GitHub to host its tools and share tactics with supporters, creating a dangerous democratization of cyberwarfare capabilities.
Your organization’s survival guide
The NCSC has issued specific recommendations that organizations must implement immediately to protect against these evolving attacks. The guidance focuses on five critical defensive layers that can mean the difference between business continuity and catastrophic disruption.
First, organizations must understand their digital attack surface by identifying potential resource-exhaustion points and responsibility boundaries within their systems. This includes strengthening upstream defenses through ISP mitigations, third-party DDoS protection services, content delivery networks, and considering redundancy with multiple providers.
The second priority involves designing systems for rapid scaling using cloud auto-scaling capabilities or virtualization with spare capacity to handle sudden traffic surges. Organizations must also define and rehearse response plans that support graceful degradation, adapt to changing attacker tactics, retain administrative access during attacks, and ensure scalable fallbacks for essential services.
Finally, continuous testing and monitoring capabilities are essential to detect attacks early and validate the effectiveness of defensive measures, yesterday’s guidance emphasizes. The NCSC particularly urges organizations to review helpdesk password reset processes and enhance monitoring against unauthorized account misuse, especially for high-privilege accounts.
Industry reaction
Naturally, the tech industry has offered its view on this matter. One helpful example is below.
Dr Ric Derbyshire, Principal Security Researcher, Orange Cyberdefense, said, “The NCSC’s warning of Russian-aligned hacktivist groups disrupting the UK economy is concerning, but sadly unsurprising. The fact that this warning is emerging so early in 2026 highlights the pace at which hacktivism is escalating into a strategic concern.
“I believe that we will see hacktivism continue to become more pervasive and consequential over the course of this year. This expansion is characterised by an emerging trend that we call escalatory hacktivism, where groups align with state-backed narratives and contribute to their host state’s hybrid warfare efforts — precisely the behaviour the NCSC is warning about. That strategic focus, coupled with chasing the ‘cyber-dragon’ of infamy, has pushed such hacktivist groups toward attacking operational technology environments, including those within local government and critical infrastructure.
“The UK must anticipate a further increase in both frequency and severity of attacks on critical infrastructure, with more pronounced physical effects. Defenders currently contend with IT-based ransomware from cybercriminals and state-driven pre-positioning or espionage, but they must prepare for a diversification of attacks from hacktivist groups that emphasise overt disruption.”
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