On Monday evening, Sky News revealed that China was behind a major cyber-attack on the Ministry of Defence systems. A day later, the full extent remains unknown.
The MoD is urgently investigating the breach after discovering the payroll system, managed by an outside contractor, was hacked. This exposed the names, bank details, and, in some cases, addresses of serving personnel.
Multiple Whitehall sources have confirmed that the government believes the Chinese state, possibly via a third party, is responsible.
Other media outlets have now reported the same.
However, the government is not publicly naming China, and there is considerable nervousness about how to handle this situation.
There is a lot of mistrust about the government’s motivation for not identifying China today. There’s a simpler reason, I’ve been informed.
Today’s public announcement is mainly due to data protection laws requiring those affected to be informed within days of the breach.
However, formally blaming another country, known as the “designation” process, takes months or even years to meet the required evidential standards. This was the case when Oliver Dowden blamed China two months ago for hacking the Electoral Commission years earlier.
Some will still believe the government does not want to say things publicly because of the economic relationship, and Rishi Sunak’s own nuanced position on UK-Sino relations.
Yet that ship has sailed – China is being widely blamed, so ministers look odd, and even a bit cowardly, for ducking the question.
This speaks to the wider uncertainty – whether the UK policy on China looks more to the US, where some hawks want China to be seen as an overt threat, or looks to the EU – President Xi is currently in France – which takes a more emollient role.
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