The UK govt revealed on Monday that China was behind a wave of
cyber attacks
against
MPs
and peers, as well as a hack on the
electoral commission
accessing personal details of over 40 million voters.
The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office issued a statement saying, "The UK, supported by allies across the Five Eyes partnership, have identified that China state-affiliated actors were responsible for two malicious cyber campaigns targeting democratic institutions and parliamentarians.
This is the latest in a clear pattern of malicious cyber activity by China state-affiliated organisations and individuals targeting democratic institutions and parliamentarians in the UK and beyond."
The UK govt said the National Cyber Security Centre assessed it's highly likely China state-affiliated cyber actor APT31 conducted reconnaissance activity against parliamentarians in 2021. The govt has sanctioned a front company and two actors involved in the operations of APT31.
UK: China state-based threat to eco security
Last Aug, the UK's elections watchdog revealed that an attack on voters' data had taken place in Aug 2021, discovered only in Oct 2022. The perpetrators had access to the Commission’s servers which held its email, control systems, and copies of the electoral registers used to enable permissibility checks on political donations. The registers also included the name and address of anyone in Britain who was registered to vote between 2014 and 2022. On Monday the UK govt said the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), which is a part of GCHQ, assessed the Electoral Commission, which oversees elections and regulates political finance, was highly likely compromised by a China state-affiliated entity.
UK PM Rishi Sunak said: “China is behaving in an increasingly assertive way abroad, authoritarian at home and it represents an epoch-defining challenge, and also the greatest state-based threat to our economic security.”
China rejected UK’s accusations of cyberattacks, describing them as slander.
English (US) ·