Hackers stole data in UK government cyberattack, minister confirms

Date:
Fri, 19 Dec 2025 17:25:00 +0000

Description:
The attack seems to have happened in October but the risk towards citizens is minimal.

FULL STORY

The UK government has confirmed speculation that classified government
servers were hacked and accessed by threat actors , as former chief advisor Dominic Cummings brought to light.

Reports assessed (as did Cummings) that Chinese state-sponsored threat actors broke into a system belonging to the UK government in October and possibly stole data like visa information.

Now, Trade Minister Chris Bryant has confirmed the findings on BBC Breakfast, but played down the importance of the hit. According to the BBC, a threat
actor broke into a system operated by the Foreign Office, on behalf of the
Home Office. The break-in was addressed pretty quickly, and a more thorough investigation is currently ongoing.

Part of modern life

Bryant did not want to confirm nor deny that it was a Chinese threat actor, saying the investigators simply dont know as yet who is responsible.

He downplayed the importance of the individuals, insisting; "we think that
it's a fairly low risk that individuals will have been compromised or affected."

He also said that government facilities are always going to be potentially targeted, and that the investigators are now working through the consequences of what this is.

"This is a part of modern life that we have to tackle and deal with," he concluded.

For years, government agencies and private cybersecurity organizations in the West were warning about coordinated, organized, and large-scale cyberattacks coming in from China. Multiple threat actors, including Volt Typhoon, Salt Typhoon, APT27, Mustang Panda, have allegedly been targeting critical infrastructure, telecommunications firms , governments, think tanks, and journalists, in an attempt to disrupt key organizations and steal valuable information.

In its first term, the Trump administration even banned Huawei from building out the countrys 5G infrastructure, saying the Chinese government could force the company into installing backdoors for eavesdropping and cyber-espionage.

China has always vehemently denied any such accusations and claims instead
that the US is the worlds largest cyber-bully.

Via Reuters

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Link to news story: https://www.techradar.com/pro/security/hackers-stole-data-in-uk-government-cyb erattack-minister-confirms

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