CHINESE hackers struck at the heart of British democracy and accessed 40 million voters’ personal details, The Sun can reveal.
Britain will officially finger China for a 2021 cyber attack on the Electoral Commission that oversees all UK elections.
The Communist superstate will be named and shamed in Parliament tomorrow – as the key players involved are slapped with hefty sanctions.
Deputy Prime Minister Oliver Dowden will also warn dozens that politicians have been targeted by Chinese hackers.
Later the Foreign Office will add a number of Chinese suspects involved to an official blacklist.
It’s understood the United States government will also point to Beijing for a cyber attacks on America on Monday.
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Last night Foreign Office sources played down suggestions they had “gone slow” on officially attributing the attack to China are months of Whitehall wrangling.
The Electoral Commission admitted last August that “hostile actors” had accessed their data systems and email – but today the Government will officially attribute China as the culprit.
‘HOSTILE ACTORS’
They apologised for falling foul of the “complex cyber-attack” that was identified in October 2022, 16 months after the August 2021 strike.
Shaun McNally, the Electoral Commission Chief Executive, said last year: “We regret that sufficient protections were not in place to prevent this cyber-attack.”
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He admitted: “As part of the attack, hostile actors were able to access reference copies of the electoral registers, held by the Commission for research purposes and to enable permissibility checks on political donations.
We know which systems were accessible to the hostile actors, but are not able to know conclusively what files may or may not have been accessed
Shaun McNally
“The registers held at the time of the cyber-attack include the name and address of anyone in Great Britain who was registered to vote between 2014 and 2022, the names of those registered as overseas voters during the same period, and the names and addresses of anyone registered in Northern Ireland in 2018.
“We know which systems were accessible to the hostile actors, but are not able to know conclusively what files may or may not have been accessed.”
Beijing ‘has made no secret’ of their desire to attack foreign politicians
Luke de Pulford boss of anti-China alliance IPAC group, said: “About a year ago the Belgian and French foreign ministries publicly confirmed China sponsored cyberattacks against our members.
“Other countries have done the same privately.
“Beijing has made no secret of their desire to attack foreign politicians who dare to stand up to them.”
Meanwhile a small group of vocal China critics have been called to a briefing by Parliament’s director of security Alison Giles about attacks on their computers.
They include former Tory leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith, former minister Tim Loughton, crossbench peer Lord Alton and SNP MP Stewart McDonald.
The four are members of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China group which monitors the increasingly hostile Asian power.
Luke de Pulford boss of anti-China alliance IPAC group, said: “About a year ago the Belgian and French foreign ministries publicly confirmed China sponsored cyberattacks against our members.
“Other countries have done the same privately.
“Beijing has made no secret of their desire to attack foreign politicians who dare to stand up to them.”
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Harry Cole
