The world is an increasingly conflicted place, with the geopolitical relations between East and West as tensioned as they’ve ever been in decades.
In this dangerous panorama, a relentless game of cyber attacks and counterattacks seems to be afoot.
At this point, it surfaces that the Chinese regime is now suspected to have hacked the British Ministry of Defense.
MPs were briefed today of the massive data breach involving the MoD, targeting its service personnel.
Sky News reported:
“The government will not name the country involved, but Sky News understands this to be China. The Chinese state is to be accused of two or three attempts at hacking MoD employees – including personnel.”
The cyberattack targeted a payroll system holding data of current service personnel and some veterans. Names and bank details may have been exposed.
“China’s foreign ministry said it ‘firmly opposes and fights all forms of cyber attacks’ and ‘rejects the use of this issue politically to smear other countries’.
Tobias Ellwood, a Conservative MP and former soldier, told Sky News that China ‘was probably looking at the financially vulnerable with a view that they may be coerced in exchange for cash’.”
The affected contractor system is not connected to the main MoD computer systems.
The British MoD is assessing the scale of the hack.
Two months ago, China’s ‘state-affiliated actors’ were also blamed by the UK government for two “malicious” cyberattack campaigns.
“Making a speech in the Commons in March, Deputy Prime Minister Oliver Dowden revealed the two previous incidents involved an attack on the Electoral Commission – responsible for overseeing elections and political finance – in 2021, and targeted attacks against China-sceptic MPs.
[…] Sir Iain Duncan Smith, a Conservative MP and former soldier who has been sanctioned by China, told Sky News: ‘This is yet another example of why the UK government must admit that China poses a systemic threat to the UK and change the integrated review to reflect that’.”
Conservative MP Jeremy Quin, chair of the defense committee, asked Defense Secretary Grant Shapps when the ‘malign actor’ would be named.
Shapps responded that it will ‘take some time’ for government process to conclude who was to blame for cyber-attack.
The Guardian reported:
“Grant Shapps, the defense secretary, has said that “state involvement” in the large-scale cyber attack on the Ministry of Defense (MoD) cannot be ruled out – but without confirming reports that China was responsible.
Shapps said ‘if indeed there is a state sponsored actor” involved, there was a process involved for identifying them. He said it would “take some time’ to reach conclusions.”
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