Chinese hackers ‘stole UK phone data for 7 years’

MILLIONS of Britons may have had their mobile phone data exposed to Chinese hackers for up to seven years in one of the world’s biggest cyber attacks.

The hackers, believed to be working for the Chinese government, placed espionage tools on the systems of at least ten unidentified mobile phone firms worldwide to spy on high-profile targets.

It allowed them to extract customers’ details and information on calls and texts as well as the geolocation data of their smartphones to track their exact movements.

The revelation raises fresh concerns about the use of technology provided by Chinese tech giant Huawei in UK mobile phone networks, amid fears that it could be used for spying.

Sources at the Cyber Week security conference in Israel – where details of the hacking operation were revealed – suggested that one of the affected networks could be linked to the UK.

The hacking operation was apparently aimed at gaining the records of a small number of suspected Chinese dissidents, effectively turning the smartphones in their pockets against them. The hackers extracted hundreds of gigabytes of data from at least some of the networks, meaning that millions of non-targeted customers may have had their data breached.

The huge operation was uncovered by the US-Israeli cyber security firm Cybereason, which blocked the attack and discovered that all the stolen data seemed to be aimed at getting the records of fewer than 30 people.

Cybereason chief executive Lior Div said the firm’s investigation identified the hacking techniques used, suggesting with ‘a high degree of certainty’ that the attackers were affiliated with China. They were consistent with the shadowy hacking group APT10, which is believed to operate on behalf of the Chinese Ministry of State Security.

Cybereason found that nine other networks had their systems infected in the same way, with some possibly targeted for seven years.

Delegates at the conference included Ciaran Martin, chief executive of the UK Government’s National Cyber Security Centre, which has previously raised concerns about APT10. A spokesman for Vodafone said: ‘Vodafone has spoken to Cybereason to understand the threats that were reported, although we were not involved in their investigations.’

A spokesman for BT, which owns the EE network, said: ‘We have seen no evidence across any of our network to suggest that BT has been compromised by a cyber attack [but] are currently investigating our estate to understand if there have been any attempts.’

Three refused to comment, but sources suggested it was not affected. O2 did not respond to requests for comment.