Ministers have vowed to halt continued cyber attacks by China and promised to “stop at nothing” to protect the country’s democratic processes, as Beijing linked hackers stand accused of targeting politicians and institutions.
The Government is expected to blame China for a major cyber attack on the Electoral Commission, which compromised the personal data of 40 million UK voters.
Beijing will also be accused of targeting 43 individuals, including MPs and peers.
Ministers are expected to announce a raft of sanctions on individuals thought to be connected with the alleged activity.
Beijing will also be accused of targeting 43 individuals, including MPs and peers
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Deputy Prime Minister Oliver Dowden will update MPs on the situation later on Monday.
The Electoral Commission attack was identified in October 2022 after hackers had been able to access the Commission’s systems for more than a year.
The data held at the time of the attack included the name and address of anyone in the UK who was registered to vote between 2014 and 2022, as well as the names of those registered as overseas voters.
Speaking this morning, the Nuclear Minister Andrew Bowie told GB News: “The fact is that this Government has invested a lot of time, money and effort in ensuring that our cyber security capabilities are at the place they need to be, we’ve increased the powers of our intelligence and security community to be able to deal with these threats.
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Oliver Dowden will update MPs later today
PA“And we will stop at nothing to ensure that the British people, our democracy, our freedom of speech and our way of life is defended.”
He insisted the Government took a pragmatic approach to dealing with Beijing, amid reports that China’s EVE Energy is set to invest in a battery plant in the West Midlands.
Bowie added: “We have to have a grown-up, pragmatic relationship with China.
"And that means looking at each of these investments in the round, on a case-by-case basis, ensuring that our security and our individual liberties and freedoms are not undermined by any of the investments that are under way.”
The Government is expected to blame China for a major cyber attack on the Electoral Commission, which compromised the personal data of 40 million UK voters
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A small group of politicians, regarded as China critics, have been called to a briefing by Parliament’s director of security, Alison Giles, in relation to the hacking activity.
They are all members of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (IPAC) pressure group, which focuses on issues involving the increasingly assertive Asian power.
Jo Stevens, shadow secretary of state for Wales, called for a new strategy for tackling threats from foreign states.
She said: “We need a new strategy, which we have long been calling for, to tackle state threats with closer working between the Home Office and the Foreign Office to coordinate the UK’s strategic response to this growing threat both to domestic security and our electoral freedoms.”