Former senior security officials and other UK government officials sounded the alarm on China tapping into highly classified information through a major hack that is said to have lasted for years. Dominic Cummings, a former senior advisor to Boris Johnson is one such official who has spoken out about the then-prime minister being informed about a breach in 2020.
He told The Times this week that he and the former UK PM were alerted about the security breach by then-cabinet secretary (both Lord Case and Lord Sedwill served held the post at the time). Claiming how “vast amounts” of UK secrets were hacked by the Chinese, Cummings also accused the British state of giving more precedence to Chinese money than its own security.
Ex-UK PM advisor says British state picked Chinese money over security
“British state… has prioritised Chinese money over its own security for decades,” the ex-Boris Johnson advisor said of the blunder being “buried” for at least a decade. Revelations highlighted in international reports emerging on Wednesday suggested that China was stealing sensitive information recorded in Whitehall computer systems.
The information hacked by the second-largest economy in the world included information branded as “official-sensitive” and “secrets,” along with some material on the government’s IT networks, according to people familiar with the development cited by Bloomberg.
What kind of classified UK information did China access?
Cummings told The Times, “Material from intelligence services. Material from the National Security Secretariat in the Cabinet Office. Things the government has to keep secret. If they’re not secret, then there are very, very serious implications for it.” On top of that, he also alleged that he was warned against divulging details of the supposed breach.
“Many people know that, after the PM was notified about this in 2020, officials from the Cabinet Office then went round telling everybody in the meeting that it was illegal for them to discuss this with the media,” he added.
While some sources pushed back against The Times report, others insisted that catastrophic blunder traced back to an data centre in London used to store classified information. It is said to have been sold to a China-linked entity while Conservatives made the government. A report in the Spectator also suggested that some ministers even put forth a proposal to destroy the data centre in question. However, it was ultimately made secure.
On the contrary, an official defended the UK government, saying that the “most sensitive” information and systems holding it had not been hacked.
More information will be added.