Queen Elizabeth Takes On Russian Hacking? Her Majesty To Open New Cyber Security Center

Queen Elizabeth II may perform the most important opening ceremony in Great Britain in decades. The Queen is scheduled to officially open Britain’s brand new National Cyber Security Centre Tuesday as the country and its ally, the United States, battle against reported hacks by the Russian Federation.

The center is part of a $2.38 billion plan announced in November specifically to target cyber-attacks. It will provide 100 jobs for the private sector. Joined by her husband Prince Philip, Elizabeth will join a number of government ministers in London as the U.K. attempts to contend with a reported 60 “significant” cyber attacks a month, with many of the alleged attacks stemming from Russian-backed hackers, the center’s new head, Ciaran Martin, told The Times of London in a story published Sunday.

Martin said Britain’s national security was targeted by 188 “high-level” attacks in the last three months. “In the case of government departments, [it is] getting into the system to extract information on UK government policy on anything from energy to diplomacy to information on a particular sector,” Martin said.

The attacks are believed to be focused on sensitive defense and foreign policy secrets from ministries. Finance Minister Phillip Hammond wrote in The Telegraph Sunday that the center had already hindered more than 34,000 possible hacks in the last six months.

“As the internet has developed and evolved, so too has the architecture of government bodies that seek to police the system, creating an ad hoc arrangement of organizations with, often, overlapping remits and responsibilities,” Hammond wrote.

Even with the new center opening, Britain has played an integral role in exposing alleged Russian hacking of the U.S.’ presidential election. British intelligence was “among the first to raise an alarm” that Russia had targeted the Democratic National Committee and had relayed the information to American intelligence officials, The New York Times reported last month. The intel alleged Russia had been conducting attacks as early as July 2015.

Though her power is ceremonial, the Queen's appearance at the opening will be one of the first since December when she fell ill over the Christmas holidays.