A hacking group has targeted politicians and journalists critical of China. Emily Hohler reports
British and US officials on Monday accused China of launching a “prolific” global campaign of cyberattacks, targeting politicians, journalists and academics in addition to millions of voters, says Steven Swinford in The Times. London and Washington say the hacking group, Advanced Persistent Threat 31, is an arm of China’s Ministry of State Security, and has conducted a “decade-long” campaign to “repress critics, compromise government institutions and steal trade secrets”.
APT31 has allegedly compromised the personal records of millions of Americans, and last year the UK Electoral Commission revealed that Chinese hackers had accessed the data of 40 million voters. This week the UK has sanctioned two Chinese officials and one organisation, while the US has charged seven people over attacks dating back to 2010. The Chinese embassy in London described the accusations as “groundless” and said that strong “démarches” had been issued to relevant parties in Britain and the US.
Rishi Sunak said it was right to “take measures to protect ourselves”, describing China’s increasingly assertive behaviour as an “epoch-defining challenge”, while his deputy, Oliver Dowden, described the attacks as “completely unacceptable”. Tory MPs said the government’s actions did not go far enough given the scale of the threat, says Camilla Turner in The Telegraph.
Former Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith, who has been sanctioned by Beijing and targeted by hackers, likened the response to an “elephant giving birth to a mouse” and compared the West’s approach to 1930s appeasement, calling for a much “tougher” response. For all the outrage, the action taken was surprisingly mild, agreed a Telegraph editorial. But then Chinese “snooping” isn’t exactly news. “The Chinese Communist Party’s tentacles are everywhere, seeking to siphon up cutting-edge technology and interfering in the democratic political processes of dozens of countries.” The question is why countries are “collectively” calling Beijing out now, and whether they will go further.
An overreaction?
A major reason for reticence is
