China is suspected of cyber attack on the UK Ministry of Defense | Cybersecurity

The United Kingdom Ministry of Defense was the target of a computer attack that exposed the names, bank details and addresses of soldiers and former combatants from the three branches of the Armed Forces (Army, Navy and Air Force). Sky News, which broke the news first hand on Monday night, guarantees that the cyber attack was carried out by the Chinese State.

The British Prime Minister did not confirm the identity of those responsible for the computer attack, but he did not shy away from criticizing the People’s Republic of China, a country that Rishi Sunak says has “fundamentally different values” from those of the United Kingdom and that “is acting in a more authoritarian and assertive abroad”.

“There is evidence that a malign actor has compromised the Armed Forces payments network, but I want to reassure people that the Ministry of Defense has already taken steps to [pôr a rede] offline and to ensure that those affected are supported in the most correct way”, said the head of the conservative Government, quoted by guardian.

Emphasizing the “robust” measures that his Government has adopted to “protect itself against the risks that China and other countries” pose to the United Kingdom, such as the recent blocking of Chinese investment in a “sensitive semiconductor” company, Sunak also recalled that he approved the increase in British military expenditure to 2.5% of GDP by 2030, as a reaction to new types of threats.

“We are facing an axis of authoritarian states, which include Russia, Iran, North Korea and China, which represent a risk to our values, our interests and, in fact, to our country”, he concluded , referring further explanations about the cyber attack to the intervention that the Minister of Defense made this afternoon in Parliament.

Speaking to MPs in the House of Commons, Grant Shapps confirmed that there was “evidence that an evil agent had access to part of the British Armed Forces payments network”, but also refused to name who was responsible. He said, however, that the Government does not exclude “state” involvement in the cyberattack.

“Although we can see that there is an evil agent involved, we still have to make the full link to a State – although I cannot exclude that possibility,” he said, when asked by deputies about the alleged responsibility of the Asian giant China. “We still don’t have evidence to reach that conclusion.”

Apologizing to those affected and promising an in-depth investigation into the computer attack and an immediate “response plan” to “support and protect the population”, Shapps clarified that the hacked network is “external” to the “core network” and is “totally separate ” of the Ministry of Defense’s “main payment system”, so not all soldiers and veterans were affected.

In response to a question from a Labor Party deputy, the conservative minister ended up admitting that the company responsible for the attacked network is SSCL (Shared Services Connected Ltd.), which manages several computer systems for other government departments.

Beijing rejects “absurd” accusations

Iain Duncan Smith, deputy and former leader of the Conservative Party, who was the target of sanctions by the Chinese Government for denouncing human rights abuses in Xinjiang, says he has no doubts about who was responsible for the computer attack.

“China is behind this”, he said, speaking to Sky. “[A] reluctance [do executivo britânico em nomear a China está relacionada com] this panic that somehow if we upset China, China will ruin the deal,” he added.

At the end of March, however, Downing Street directly accused China of having carried out a series of computer attacks on the servers of the British Electoral Commission, which took place in 2021, exposing the personal data (such as names and addresses) of more than 40 million voters, including voters registered abroad.

At the time, Sunak said that China “represents an era-defining challenge” and that it is the “biggest state threat” to the country’s security.

A year earlier, on the occasion of updating the strategic document on the United Kingdom’s post-“Brexit” foreign and defense policy, the Government tory had already declared that the “systemic challenge” represented by China, under the command of the Chinese Communist Party, has “implications in almost all areas of Government policy and in the day-to-day lives of the British population”.

As in March, representatives of the Chinese Government and State denied any responsibility of Beijing for the computer attack on the Ministry of Defense. Quoted by Reuters, Lin Jian, spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, labeled the statements by “British politicians”, such as Duncan Smith, “absurd”.

China’s embassy in London “reiterated that China’s so-called ‘cyber attacks on the United Kingdom’ are completely fabricated and harmful slander” and said that Beijing firmly opposes “the politicization of cybersecurity issues and the baseless defamation of other countries without factual evidence.”

“China has neither the interest nor the need to interfere in the UK’s internal affairs,” assured a spokesperson for the Chinese diplomatic representation in the United Kingdom, cited by Sky News.

This entire atmosphere of tension and suspicion comes at a time when a former advisor to the United Kingdom Parliament, of British nationality, who worked with MPs from the Conservative Party, and a second person were formally charged by the Public Prosecutor’s Office of England and the Country. of Wales of espionage for the People’s Republic of China.