The UK government is to invest £16m into cybersecurity, following the recent high-profile cyber attacks on UK retailers M&S, Co-op and Harrods.

Speaking today (7 May) at the CyberUK conference in Manchester, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster Pat McFadden described the cyber breaches as a “wake-up call”.

“Cyber attacks are not a game. Not a clever exercise. They are serious organised crime. The purpose is to damage and extort,” said McFadden, reported the Telegraph.

“The digital version of an old-fashioned shake down. Either straight theft or a protection racket, where your business will be safe as long as you pay the gangsters.

He added: “What we have seen over the past couple of weeks should serve as a wake-up call for businesses and organisations up and down the UK, as if we needed one, that cybersecurity is not a luxury but an absolute necessity.”

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The government’s new measures are set to help reinforce systems against ransomware attacks, and will include the publication of a new software security code of practice. The initiative will outline essential steps the government believes every organisation developing or selling software should be taking to secure their products.

Alongside the new regulations, the government is driving investment into a “magic chip” dubbed CHERI, which is understood to build advanced memory protects in microprocessors.

This innovation will be supported by a £4.5m investment to help implement the technology, which the Cabinet Office claims can help block up to 70% of cyber attacks.

The ministers’ comments follow a flurry of events following the fallout of the IT attacks faced by Co-op and M&S last week.

Today, the Co-op revealed it had been forced to reroute its stock in rural areas following limited stock availability for some of its products.