By Jessica Frank-Keyes
The government has issued sanctions and summoned the Chinese ambassador over state-affiliated cyber-attacks which spies could use to target UK-based dissidents.
Beijing has been publicly blamed by senior ministers for targeting the UK Electoral Commission and running online “reconnaissance” into email accounts of MPs and peers.
A front company, Wuhan Xiaoruizhi Science and Technology Company, and two individuals, Zhao Guangzong and Ni Gaobin, linked to the APT31 hacking group have been sanctioned over the cyber-attacks.
And Chinese spies could even use data stolen from the hack of the elections watchdog to target dissidents of Xi Jinping’s government based in the UK, intelligence services have warned.
Foreign secretary Lord David Cameron said the cyber-attacks were “completely unacceptable” and that he had raised the issue “directly with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi”.
Deputy Prime Minister Oliver Dowden said the UK “will not tolerate malicious cyber activity”.
He described defending democracy and British values as “an absolute priority” and warned the UK would continue “holding the Chinese government accountable for its actions”.
While home secretary James Cleverly called the cyber-assault “reprehensible” but stressed that: “China’s attempts at espionage did not give them the results they wanted.”
He pledged: “Our upcoming elections, at local and national level, are robust and secure.”
The National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) – part of GCHQ – revealed the Electoral Commission was likely compromised by a state-affiliated cyber entity between 2021-2022.
The attempted cyber-attacks had no impact on electoral processes, the government said, and action has been taken to secure systems and reduce the risk of future attacks.
Separately, the NCSC is almost certain China state-affiliated APT31 unsuccessfully targeted MPs and peers who called out malign Chinese activity in a separate campaign in 2021.
Labour’s shadow chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster Pat McFadden said his party would support ministers as they worked to counter efforts by any state to “undermine” democracy”.
He told the House of Commons: “The economic relationship between the United Kingdom and China can never mean compromising on national security or our democratic integrity.”
While former Conservative leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith, who was one of the MPs who Chinese spies targeted, said he welcomed the sanctions but warned “it is a little bit, this statement, like an elephant giving birth to a mouse”.
He also urged the government to alter a key foreign policy stance on China being an “epoch-defining challenge” and redesignate the Asian superpower as a “threat” to the UK.
A spokesperson for the Chinese embassy in London said: “The so-called cyber attacks by China against the UK are completely fabricated and malicious slanders.
“China has always firmly fought all forms of cyber attacks according to law. China does not encourage, support or condone cyber attacks. We urge the relevant parties to stop spreading false information and stop their self-staged, anti-China political farce.”
