UK cyberattack: Beijing reacted angrily to a senior British lawmaker’s Tuesday statement that China was most likely responsible for a huge hack on the identities and banking information of UK military personnel.
“A malign actor has compromised the armed forces payment network,” according to Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, who refrained from mentioning China.
According to Barron’s, he made his comments in response to Tobias Ellwood, a former minister and MP, who claimed that a Chinese operation had targeted the defense ministry’s contractor payment system.
“Targeting the names of the payroll system and service personnel’s bank details — this does point to China because it can be as part of a plan, a strategy to see who might be coerced,” said the former parliamentary defence committee chairman and ex-soldier to BBC radio.
Later on Tuesday, Defence Secretary Grant Shapps was scheduled to address parliament with specifics of the data leak.
Some personal addresses of current and former members of the military forces are thought to have been leaked as well.
The administration was not now blaming Beijing, according to cabinet minister Mel Stride, who spoke with Sky News television, which broke the story.
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“That is an assumption… We are not saying that at this precise moment,” he said.
But he said that the government viewed Beijing’s government as an “epoch-defining challenge. Our eyes are wide open when it comes to China.”
Sunak continued, saying that the government had established “robust policy” against China, which was becoming more and more “authoritarian” at home and “more assertive” abroad.
Beijing retaliated against Ellwood’s assertions, a China hawk who has openly criticized Beijing’s restriction of liberties in Hong Kong.
Speaking for the foreign ministry, Lin Jian remarked, “The remarks by relevant British politicians are utter nonsense.”
“China has always firmly opposed and cracked down on all types of cyberattacks.”
In a historic cooperative effort, the US and the UK accused China in March of a worldwide campaign of “malicious” cyberattacks.
Britain said that China was hacking into the email accounts of lawmakers and the watchdog of the Electoral Commission.
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Though the Electoral Commission breach was discovered in October 2022, the hackers had been able to get into the commission’s servers for over a year.
China described that charge as “malicious slander”.
In June 2023, Google subsidiary Mandiant claimed that a massive cyberespionage effort aimed at government organizations of relevance to Beijing was being carried out by online attackers with obvious ties to China.
Washington has regularly accused Beijing of carrying out cyberattacks against US targets.
Two British men were charged with spying for China last month in London court, one of them being a former researcher for the UK parliament.
Under pressure to take a harder stance against China, Sunak’s government last month declared an increase in the nation’s defense budget to protect against new and developing threats.
Sunak dubbed China, together with Russia, Iran, and North Korea, “an axis of authoritarian states”. during a visit to Poland.
