Enabling and securing our digital future

We help create a resilient Cyber Security approach, ensuring businesses not only survive but thrive in an interconnected world.

Safeguarding our Critical National Infrastructure from Cyber Threats

Every second, the UK’s Critical National Infrastructure (CNI) — from power grids and transport networks to water treatment plants, hospitals, and telecoms — keeps the nation running. As these systems embrace digital transformation to meet future energy demands, improve efficiency, and enable smart‑grid capabilities, they also face a growing wave of cyber threats.

The scale of the challenge is stark. The 2024 Thales Data Threat Report found that 93% of CNI organisations experienced more cyberattacks last year, with 42% suffering a data breach. International Energy Agency research shows attacks doubled in most sectors between 2020 and 2022 — and doubled again in 2023. In today’s environment, resilience is measured not by if an attack will happen, but when.

These threats are not abstract. The ongoing conflict in eastern Europe has shown how hybrid warfare — combining cyber operations with physical attacks — can cripple essential services, as seen in Ukraine’s power grid blackouts. Hostile actors are targeting everything from major energy generation and distribution to water treatment facilities, transport systems, and even consumer‑level devices like smart meters and connected vehicles. Emerging technologies such as quantum computing could undermine current encryption, creating new vulnerabilities.

Thales in the UK safeguards CNI and its supply chains by ensuring systems are secure and resilient by design throughout their lifecycle. Our solutions meet the latest regulations and standards while adapting to emerging threats.

We deploy robust digital identities and advanced access management — featuring biometrics and multi‑factor authentication — to ensure only trusted users engage with critical networks. Sensitive data is protected at every stage, with encryption securing it both at rest and in transit. Real‑time threat intelligence and intrusion detection act as sentinels, enabling rapid, proactive defence before incidents escalate.

Resilience also demands readiness. Our UK Cyber Resilience Lab in Ebbw Vale provides operators with hands‑on testing and training, including physical smart energy grid and gas distribution test benches and digitally simulated environments. Here, infrastructure teams can stress‑test systems, run cyber exercises, and build the human and operational capability essential for facing tomorrow’s challenges.

Bridging National and Enterprise Resilience

The line between national infrastructure and enterprise systems is increasingly blurred. Energy providers, transport operators, healthcare networks, and financial institutions are all part of the same interconnected ecosystem — meaning a breach in one can ripple across many. A cyberattack on a single supplier can disrupt critical services nationwide, while vulnerabilities in consumer‑facing platforms can be exploited to target industrial control systems. 

Thales addresses this convergence by applying the same rigorous standards of protection across both domains, ensuring that resilience is not siloed but shared. By harmonising security protocols, enabling secure data exchange, and fostering cross‑sector threat intelligence sharing, we help create a unified defence posture that strengthens the UK’s overall security fabric.

Securing Critical Enterprise Systems

Resilience is just as vital for UK enterprises as it is for national infrastructure. Thales in the UK delivers secure, adaptable solutions that protect organisations against cyber threats and enable rapid recovery when attacks occur — safeguarding both business continuity and the UK’s economic strength.

Our comprehensive approach defends against network outages, cyber‑attacks, and intrusions in real time. We provide application protection to combat malicious bots, and help businesses discover, classify, and encrypt sensitive data wherever it resides — at rest, in transit, or in the cloud.
Protection extends across data, applications, and infrastructure through PKI certificates, encryption key management, and quantum‑resistant algorithms. Stringent identity and access management protocols ensure only authorised individuals can access critical data, systems, and physical locations.

Complementing these measures, we deliver Secure Wide Area Network (SWAN) connectivity and secure cloud solutions tailored for customers with the most demanding security needs — creating trusted, resilient digital environments.

And because every organisation faces unique challenges, our consultancy service offers tailored solutions to meet specific cybersecurity needs, helping businesses build confidence into every decision.

Cyber Resilience: A National Security Priority

Technology alone cannot secure the UK’s critical assets. Stronger government action is needed to reinforce that cyber resilience is a matter of national security, not just a business decision. This includes implementing an NIS2‑equivalent for utilities and supply chains, expanding funding models beyond energy to all regulated CNI monopolies, and introducing investment‑relief measures to drive compliance with the NCSC’s Cyber Assessment Framework.

Closer collaboration between regulators, industry, and the supply chain is essential — alongside a coherent national strategy to develop cybersecurity skills. CNI operators must view cybersecurity investment not as overhead, but as a critical contribution to national defence, sharing best practice and threat intelligence across the sector.

Embedding cyber resilience into procurement and supply chain contracts, incentivising innovation in security technologies, and aligning regulatory frameworks across sectors will help create a unified, future‑proof security posture that protects both national infrastructure and the enterprises that depend on it.