World

Watch: Jay Elwes in Conversation with David Omand

After the outrage in Salisbury, what are we to make of Vladimir Putin’s aggressive posture towards the west?

May 09, 2018
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David Omand the former head of GCHQ, the government’s secret communications intelligence agency, sat down with Jay Elwes, Executive Editor of Prospect, to discuss the challenges posed by a new range of cyber threats, many of which have been deployed against the west. Elections in the US, Europe and possibly also Britain have been the target of foreign cyber-activity—and even if this meddling has not decided the outcome of those votes, the attempted interference by one state in the political system of another is a grave affront to liberal democratic values. Omand discusses the extent of this threat, focussing on the Russian use of these new methods of digital subversion, and asks: what are these new techniques; why have they come into use now; and what can be done about them? The former spy chief confronts all these questions and more— follow us on twitter for the latest updates about upcoming Prospect events.