The cyber threat level to private and publicly owned critical infrastructure is the highest it’s ever been, the former head of the United Kingdom’s National Cyber Security Centre says.

“These organised criminals and hacking groups that work for hostile governments have presented us with a situation where the threat to disruption of the critical services that we depend on is probably at its highest,” Cyber CX advisory board member Ciaran Martin told Markets with Madison while he was in Auckland from the UK this week.

“What we’re worried about now, what drives the cyber threats, are three things; politics, money, and technology.”

While the monetary motive had not changed, the other two had escalated, he explained.