August 12th 2023.
It has been revealed that hackers from Russia and China infiltrated the Foreign Office's emails and internal messages without the public's knowledge. This major security breach enabled cyber attackers to see the day-to-day business of the government department in 2021. All of this was enabled when a Foreign Office staff member likely accidentally downloaded malware hidden in an email.
While the breach did not give them access to classified information, it has raised serious concerns about security measures in place in government at the time. A source said that the issue with government departments is that they are culturally apathetic about security and particularly cyber security. Insiders from GCHQ and the Foreign Office revealed that hackers would have been able to access correspondence from ambassadors or diplomats positioned abroad not marked as classified. This could have compromised relationships with allies because private communications could have been read by Russia and China.
Sources from GCHQ and the Foreign Office said that Russia and China accessed the systems at the same time in separate attacks. A GCHQ insider revealed that "At one point we believe both were on there." They went on to say that it was very embarrassing and caused great stir in government because they did not know whether they should admit it or not. It would have been an enormous amount of information, but none of it should have been classified, just daily business stuff.
The news comes after the data of millions of voters could have been accessed after the Electoral Commission revealed it was hacked for more than a year. 'Hostile actors' first gained access to the regulator's systems in August 2021, but were only discovered in October last year after a suspicious pattern of log-in requests.
The incident related to a flaw in a piece of software called MOVEit Transfer, used by thousands of companies globally to transfer files, which could be exploited by cyber criminals. It had suspected links to a Russian-speaking cybercrime gang called Clop. A source said the government is 'apathetic' about cyber security, which is very concerning. The global community must work together to ensure that cyber security measures are taken seriously.
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