Get tough on China say MPs after cyber attack on MoD troop records
Furious MPs last night demanded tougher action against China following its alleged cyber attack on a Ministry of Defence database containing the records of 272,000 troops.
No 10 refused to openly blame Beijing for the hack, which potentially compromised the bank details of all serving British military personnel and some veterans – and may have also released some home addresses.
speaking in London, rishi sunak said there were ‘indications that a malign actor’ had compromised the database, but declined to attribute the attack to a specific state or ‘actor’.
But politicians and experts said the attack, via a third-party contractor used by 22 government departments, bore all the hallmarks of Chinese origin.
it mirrored China’s assault on the Electoral Commission’s computers and its targeting of members of Parliament and peers.
Conservative former leader sir iain Duncan smith told sky News: ‘This is yet another example of why the uK Government must admit that China poses a systemic threat to the uK.’
He added: ‘No more pretence, it is a malign actor, supporting russia with money and military equipment, working with iran and North Korea in a new axis of totalitarian states.’
in 2021 Beijing’s hackers accessed personal details of millions of voters by breaking into the Electoral Commission’s internal email system. Details of the attack emerged this year.
in a House of Commons statement yesterday, Defence secretary Grant shapps apologised to the men and women of the Ministry of Defence affected, saying ‘this should not have happened’.
The latest revelations have led to accusations the Foreign office is reluctant to hold China to account, treat the Chinese Communist Party as an adversary and impose sanctions on its officials.
speaking in a Commons debate yesterday, Conservative MP Alicia Kearns, who is among the uK parliamentarians who have been targeted by China for speaking out, said: ‘Attacking our institutions and people who defend or represent our people is not the act of an ally or a friend and the British police have explicitly deemed these actions the actions of an enemy.
‘What is my right Honourable friend doing to make sure we finally get a cross-government consensus to get the Foreign office to change our position on this?’
Yesterday, in his first trip to Europe since 2019, China’s president Xi Jinping was dining with French counterpart Emmanuel Macron near Bagneres-deBigorre in France.
During his 2015 state visit to Britain, President Xi enjoyed a pint at The Plough pub in Buckinghamshire with then-prime minister David Cameron.
The contractor targeted by China was named in Parliament as ssCL (shared services Connected Limited).
NEWS that the Government suspects China of being behind the massive hack of a payroll system used by the Ministry of Defence should surprise nobody.
In the latest incident, hackers harvested the personal details – including names, addresses and bank details – of more than 250,000 serving and former members of the Army, Royal Navy and RAF.
While it’s reassuring to be told that no sensitive operational information was obtained, this security breach is deeply troubling. China could easily use the stolen data to blackmail Armed Forces personnel into divulging secrets which will help give it an edge militarily.
Defence Secretary Grant Shapps has avoided publicly pointing the finger of blame, but even had he done so, the Chinese authorities wouldn’t ease up on the espionage.
They know that Britain is tied increasingly tightly to their country’s economic apronstrings. The benefits of trade are so great for the UK that shunning China would be an act of huge self-harm.
But we must adopt a tougher and more pragmatic approach. At the very least, our data systems should be robust enough to see off any cyber threat from hostile actors.
China is an aggressive dictatorship that is determined to win a power struggle with the West at all cost. We must use every weapon at our disposal to prevent that happening.