Chinese-backed hackers allegedly targeted U.S. officials, journalists, corporations, pro-democracy activists and the United Kingdom's electoral watchdog in a comprehensive, state-backed attack on March 25, authorities announced in an announcement on March 25. The attack was aimed at targeting officials, journalists, corporations, pro-democracy activists, and the British election watchdog.
In 2010, China launched Operation Troll to harass critics of the government, steal trade secrets from American corporations, as well as spy on and trace high-level political figures, an operation that began in 2010. Officials say the campaign began in 2010.
During the last election, Western officials sounded a fresh alarm about a country long regarded as having advanced espionage capabilities when they revealed the operation, which was carried out by a hacking group called APT31.
According to the U.S. Justice Department, seven hackers are being charged with crimes in China, and they are believed to be living there. An official announcement by the British government concerning the breach that may have provided China with access to information on tens of millions of U.K. voters held by the Electoral Commission was that a front company and two defendants had been imposed sanctions by the British government.
U.K. Deputy Prime Minister Oliver Dowden said that hackers working for the Chinese government were responsible for the 2021 data breach at the Electoral Commission in his speech to lawmakers in Parliament on Monday.
It was the first time since the cyberattack was reported in 2023 that the United Kingdom has attributed it to the Chinese government and has said it is not going to hesitate to take swift and robust actions whenever the Chinese government threatens its interest.
In his speech, Dowden said the U.K. government would not hesitate to take quick and robust action whenever the Chinese government threatened its interests. In the United Kingdom, the Electoral Commission, which keeps copies of the register of citizens eligible for voting, reported in July that hackers had taken an estimated 40 million U.K. citizens' names and addresses. There are approximately 5 million registered voters across the U.S. including all people who voted in the last 4 years.
Between 2014 and 2022, over 30 million people were affected by the data breach, but they weren't recognized until after a year had passed.
As the deputy prime minister of the United Kingdom mentioned in Parliament in Downden's speech, the attack likely occurred as part of a wider threat perpetrated by government-backed groups.
The government of New Zealand, as well as the governments of other Western countries, have also voiced their concerns. Several high-profile phishing attacks targeting German politicians that were linked to Russian-backed groups have recently been reported in the media. APT31, a Chinese-based cyberattack group, has been sanctioned in the UK as part of the government's response to the attack by responding to the involvement of two individuals, Zhao Guangzong and Ni Gaobin, and one company, Wuhan Xiaoruizhi Science and Technology Company Ltd.
Those companies are no longer authorised to handle these funds or assets, and the individuals are not allowed to enter the country.
" There is no doubt that APT31 has an impeccable track record of targeting politicians both in the US and Europe. They have targeted various political campaigns, parliamentarians, and other targets to gain insight into the landscape," said John Hultquist, Chief Analyst of Mandiant Intelligence - Google Cloud.
APT31 has been identified as a threat targeting British lawmakers during a separate campaign in 2021, the National Cyber Security Centre said, even though no parliamentary accounts were compromised, a reconnaissance activity was conducted against the lawmakers during that campaign.
The British Foreign Secretary, David Cameron, made a formal request for the Chinese ambassador to be summoned, and he said in a separate statement that he raised the matter directly with the Chinese Foreign Minister, Wang Yi.
It is clear from the episode that for the UK, this represents an increasing level of tension that has been growing since Hong Kong passed security legislation that the UK says undermines freedom in Hong Kong. Moreover, this violated the handover agreement signed by the two countries when Beijing took over the governance of the territory in 1997.z
