Grid faces Chinese hacking onslaught

CHINESE hackers are trying to breach the National Grid’s computer system 1,000 times a day, it can be revealed.

During a tour of one of the organisation’s operational centres, a senior source supplied the figure to a freelance journalist and added: ‘The only time it drops off is during Chinese New Year.’

Attempts to break into the network that controls the UK’s electricity supply are now at record levels, with Russia also believed to be heavily involved in the high-tech espionage.

Senior military and intelligence figures have already warned that plans to let China have a stake in Britain’s nuclear power industry threaten the UK’s national security.

Chinese president Xi Jinping is expected to sign a joint deal next week for new nuclear power plants in Hinkley in Somerset, and Sizewell in Suffolk, during the first visit to the UK by a Chinese leader in a decade.

Lord Arbuthnot, who chaired the Defence Select Committee until last year, told The Mail on Sunday: ‘Most ordinary people would be astonished to find that the power utilities are coming under more attack than even the financial services.

‘I don’t believe that China has hostile intent against the United Kingdom but I think they would like to be in a position where, if they formed hostile intent, they were able to carry it out.’

A National Grid spokesman said it had ‘robust monitoring systems’ in place to protect itself.