Tag Archive for: Britain

Britain summons Chinese charge d’affaires over alleged cyber hacking, ET Telecom


LONDON: Britain on Tuesday summoned the charge d’affaires of the Chinese Embassy in London after accusing Chinese state-backed hackers of stealing data from Britain’s elections watchdog and carrying out a surveillance operation against parliamentarians.

Britain said the Chinese hackers stole the voter registration data – mostly names and addresses – of about 40 million people from the Electoral Commission and tried to break into lawmakers’ emails.

“The (Foreign Office) set out the government’s unequivocal condemnation of Chinese state-affiliated organisations and individuals undertaking malicious cyber activity against UK democratic institutions and parliamentarians,” a spokesperson for Britain’s Foreign Office said in a statement.

A spokesman for Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said on Tuesday the government is close to finalising a new foreign influence registration system that would require anyone working undeclared for a foreign country in the so-called “enhanced tier” to declare their activity.

Under Britain’s new National Security Act, individuals, such as lawyers, a public relations company or an undercover spy working for a country in the “enhanced tier” would have to record their activity in a register or face prosecution.

British Deputy Prime Minister Oliver Dowden said on Monday that China’s alleged hacking of British democratic institutions meant there was a “strong case” for including the country in the enhanced tier.

China has denied the spying allegations. The Chinese embassy in London said on Monday the claims said the claims were ”completely fabricated” and it will make “a justified and necessary response”.

The British government has previously said it would be inappropriate to call China a “threat” because it is too simplistic to view relations with the world’s second biggest economy through a single word.

Source…

Britain is no longer a functional country


No. 10 quickly asserted that the meltdown at National Air Traffic Services was a technical issue rather than a cyber attack. This was presumably meant to be reassuring. It is anything but. It speaks, once more, of a Britain with creaking infrastructure, where national paralysis has become a regular occurrence. The highest tax revenues in peacetime history have not created a properly functioning country. 

The breakdown was caused by a single mis-filed flight plan. That such havoc can result from one trivial event does little credit to the organisation entrusted with our airspace. This week’s event may not be a cyber attack, but hostile states and organisations will be taking note. If it is so easy to bring air traffic to a virtual standstill, then we lay ourselves open to the kind of attack that is likely to be an integral part of modern warfare.

Britain is the only country in Europe that has not managed to return its workforce to pre-pandemic levels

The government has been too lax on the issue of cyber security for far too long. While it was brought up in a review of defence policy during Dominic Cummings’s brief time as Boris Johnson’s chief adviser, momentum has been lost. It took several years for the government to accept that incorporating Chinese-made equipment in our broadband networks was a bad idea. This was in spite of the US warning that it would be more circumspect about intelligence sharing with Britain if our internet was vulnerable to attack.

However, this week’s events raise a wider issue about infrastructure investment. The airline industry presents a particular difficulty for the government, since mass air travel is incompatible with net zero commitments.

Its answer to the proposed new runway at Heathrow (which was first mooted in 1946) was initially to prevaricate, handing the matter to a commission led by Sir Howard Davies. Then, when the commission came down in favour of expansion in 2015, the government gave its lukewarm support. Now, it doesn’t look as if the new runway will be built. 

Three years ago the courts ruled that the runway would be in breach of the government’s climate commitments made at the 2015 Paris climate…

Source…

Army struggling to hire cyber staff as attacks on Britain ramp up


The Army is struggling to hire cyber security experts amid intense competition from business, its recruitment chief has admitted.

Richard Holroyd, managing director of Defence and Security at Capita, which handles recruitment for the Armed Forces, said it was having difficulty attracting candidates given the wealth of jobs on offer.

He told the Telegraph: “You’re saying to people with an interest in it, come and be a cyber specialist in the armed forces, but Raytheon is saying come and be a cyber specialist, BT are saying come and be a cyber specialist. So in those spaces, you’re competing.

“In a labour market with full employment it’s a tough, tough play.”

Mr Holroyd said Capita was on track to only meet 80pc of its Army recruitment target this year, in part because of difficulties filling technical roles.

He said: “Anything related to STEM [science, technology, engineering and mathematics] is a highly competitive environment. So STEM skills are tough.”

Capita’s exact target wasn’t given and the Ministry of Defence declined to comment on it.

The admission comes despite the increasing importance of cyber for both offensive and defensive capabilities.

The Minister of Defence said last month there was an “urgent requirement to continue to modernise the force to keep pace with technological developments”.

Boosting the digital skills is a “matter of priority” over the next three years, officials wrote in the Defence Command paper.

Mr Holroyd said cyber security experts have “much more choice” than in previous years and admitted that private sector companies have proven faster at recruiting, sometimes making offers within a few weeks.

Source…

Andrew Neil claims US officials are praising Brexit Britain as it strengthened US-UK intelligence cooperation


Andrew Neil has claimed that US officials are praising Brexit Britain for paving the way to strengthening the US- UK intelligence cooperation.

Mr Neil claimed that Americans were enjoying the fact Britain was able to make decisions about military and intelligence decisions without having to consult the European Union.

The former BBC journalist wrote in his weekly column for the Daily Mail that the US-UK intelligence sharing has become closer since it left the bloc.

READ MORE: Pound surges higher after UK and EU agree Northern Ireland deal

He claimed that US intelligence and foreign policy officials were “lavish in their praise” for the way Britain “unilaterally” extended its world-class cyber warfare capabilities to all of Eastern and Central Europe from the moment Russia invaded Ukraine.

He claimed that he was told by former Prime Minister Boris Johnson about the Aukus deal, the trilateral security pact between the US, UK and Australia.

Boris Johnson claimed to Alex Neil that Brexit was the reason behind the important AUKUS deal

Mr Neil wrote: “Boris Johnson claimed to me in London last week that the Aukus deal could not have happened if the UK had still been enmeshed in the EU’s common foreign and defence policy ambit.

Source…