The UK's top cyber watchdogs have sounded the alarm for Government departments, cutting-edge tech enterprises and big-money financial enterprises to up their game against Russian state-backed cyber crooks.

In a tag-team alert with American cyber authorities, the UK's National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) has blown the whistle on the latest tricks from Russia's spook squad, the SVR. They're after intel to bolster their digital warfare efforts and cause havoc for Ukraine.

The NCSC spotlight is on the SVR's full-throttle hacking spree, homing in on two sorts of prey. The "targets of intent" list reads like a who's who Government and embassy hotshots, brainy think tanks, high-flying tech corps, and the money moguls.

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Then there's the "targets of opportunity", that's essentially any outfit with weak cyber doors just begging to be kicked in.

Paul Chichester, the big boss at NCSCs ops division, laid it out bluntly: "Russian cyber actors are interested in and highly capable of accessing unpatched systems across a range of sectors, and once they are in, they can exploit this access to meet their objectives," reports the Mirror.

Brit outfits that reckon they've been hit by Putin's hackers should bell the NCSC as soon as possible. Chichester added: "All organisations are encouraged to bolster their cyber defences: take heed of the advice set out within the advisory and prioritise the deployment of patches and software updates."