Raab’s fury at Russia vaccine hackers
DOMINIC Raab has ramped up the diplomatic row with Russia by blasting their “reprehensible” cyber attack on Britain.
The Foreign Secretary responded to alleged hacks against scientific labs developing a Covid-19 vaccine.
Russia’s ambassador to the UK Andrei Kelin insisted there was “no sense” in the allegations. He said: “In this world, to attribute any kind of computer hackers to any country, it is impossible.”
But Mr Raab hit back vowing to hold Russia and President Vladimir Putin to account. He told the BBC: “Of course he will come on and deny the attack on the research and development of a vaccine.
“Russia always does this when they’ve behaved in an egregious way, they did that with the Salisbury attack in 2018, and we are calling them out.We’ve seen this as part of a wider systematic approach to cyber taken by Russia.
“At a time the world is coming together to try to tackle Covid-19 and particularly trying to come up with a global solution for a vaccine, it is outrageous and reprehensible that the Russian government is engaged in this activity.”
The latest spat with the Kremlin comes after a joint operation between the US and Canada uncovered a “malicious campaign” to steal information from Britain’s top scientists on coronavirus with targeted attacks since March.