UK Government to Warn Public How to Prepare for Cyber-Attacks and Extreme Weather
Ministers are updating Britain's classified crisis plans for the first time in two decades and launching a public awareness campaign, as officials cite AI-assisted crime and record temperatures as growing threats.
Key points
- The UK government is launching a nationwide public awareness campaign telling people how to prepare for emergencies including cyber-attacks and severe weather.
- Britain's classified national crisis plans, known as "war books", are being updated for the first time since 2004.
- Ministers will run a multi-day emergency exercise called Operation Albiston Shadow to test the country's response to coordinated hybrid attacks.
- Officials have pointed to record-breaking temperatures in May and June 2025, plus the rise of AI-assisted criminal activity, as reasons the update is urgent.
Britain's government is preparing its citizens for a rougher world. A new resilience campaign, backed by ministers, will tell ordinary people what they can do if a cyber-attack or a severe weather event cuts off power, water, phone signal, or the local shops where they buy food.
The announcement, reported by BBC News, came with a statement from a government minister who drew a line from historical crises, plagues, wars, flooding, to the threats on the horizon today. Two stood out: extreme heat and AI-powered crime.
This year the UK saw temperature records broken in May, only for those records to fall again in June. That alone would be concerning enough. But officials also flagged that artificial intelligence, software systems that can learn and act without constant human instruction, is giving criminals new ways to carry out cyber-attacks at scale and speed.
What does a cyber-attack actually do to ordinary people?
A cyber-attack on critical infrastructure, meaning the computer systems that run essential services like energy grids, water networks, and communications, can leave people without power, running water, or a working phone. It does not need to target your personal device to affect your daily life. The government's campaign will spell out practical steps anyone can take to prepare, building on guidance already published on the official government website.
Beyond the public-facing campaign, ministers are running Operation Albiston Shadow, a multi-day exercise designed to test how well the country can respond to a hybrid attack. A hybrid attack combines physical disruption with digital sabotage, for example cutting power lines while simultaneously attacking the computer systems used to restore them.
Perhaps the most striking detail is the war books update. These are the UK's classified, step-by-step crisis response plans, the instructions officials follow when things go badly wrong. They have not been revised since 2004, a year before YouTube existed and well before smartphones were common. The world those plans were written for looks nothing like the world today.
For people at home, the practical advice will arrive through the public awareness campaign. While the full details are not yet published, the government has flagged the basics: think about what you would do if the power went out for several days, if your phone stopped working, or if a local shop closed unexpectedly. Having a small supply of water, a battery-powered radio, and some cash on hand are the kinds of measures that come up in most national preparedness guidance.
