Be ready: UK told to prepare and stockpile

The UK Government has launched "Be Ready" campaign this week, urging citizens to stockpile three days' worth of food, water, and emergency supplies. "From severe weather to cyber attacks, emergencies can disrupt the services you rely on" the government added on it's website.

This news has been a talking point at The Scam Hound as last week we saw hundreds of French supermarket spiralling into chaos as their fridges and freezers were controlled by hackers who raised the temperature to 50 degrees centigrade closing stores, and this week AI found a weakness in PHP taking down websites across the word reliant on this open source back end programming language that runs on web servers, 70% of all websites were affected.

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With the progression of AI, disruption to the UK is likely to be caused by targeting infrastructure. The 13 Critical National Infrastructure Sectors are: Chemical, Civil Nuclear, Communications, Defence, Emergency Services, Energy, Finance, Food, Government, Health, Space, Transport and Water.

The government wants UK citizens to “stay prepared if everyday services are temporarily disrupted”. This campaign encourages the UK to be prepared for emergencies, synchronising with our European peers including France, Ireland and The Netherlands. This is the first stage of a 3 year initiative.

The campaign highlights 9 topics and the Priority Services Register - a service that identifies customers who need extra support in an emergency for gas, water, and electricity companies.

The nuts and bolts covered by the "Be Ready" government document include:

Water, Food Hygiene, Light and warmth, communication and information, money and documents, Medical and Health, Baby Products, Pet Products including food and water.

Things you may not have considered include, charge power banks, batteries, FM radio - works on batteries, torch again battery operated, warm clothing, copies of ID documents, cash, important phone numbers, first aid kit, bottled water for pets to drink.

Laura Scott, British Red Cross Director for UK Resilience, said:   

"We can’t control when emergencies happen, but we can all take some simple steps to be prepared, so that when they do, we are ready to help our friends, families and neighbours. 

We know from our work across the UK that local people know their communities best and want to play a part when a crisis happens. Having clear and trusted advice for people, especially those who may be more at-risk, could help reduce the impact of crises and even save lives.”

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