UK Foreign Office was victim of cyberattack


The UK Foreign Office was hacked in October, a minister has admitted, raising fears that thousands of confidential documents and data may have been compromised. While ministers are “pretty confident” that visa applicants’ details have not been accessed, they have admitted that they are not confident about the identity of the hacker.

Sources told The Sun that the Storm 1849 group was responsible for the hack in October, a Chinese organisation that was named publicly in March 2024 in connection with cyberattacks on MPs and the Electoral Commission.

Read more…
Source: MSN News


Sign up for the Cyber Security Review Newsletter
The latest cyber security news and insights delivered right to your inbox


Related:

  • Ransomware has proliferated because it’s ‘largely uncontested’, says GCHQ boss

    October 26, 2021

    If you’ve wondered why ransomware has proliferated in recent years, it’s because until recently it has remained unchallenged, according to Sir Jeremy Fleming, director of British signals intelligence agency GCHQ. “We’ve seen twice as many attacks this year as last year in the UK – but the reason it is proliferating is because it works,” ...

  • NHS Digital exposes hundreds of email addresses after BCC blunder copies in entire invite list to ‘Let’s talk cyber’ event

    October 20, 2021

    NHS Digital has scored a classic Mail All own-goal by dispatching not one, not two, not three, but four emails concerning an infosec breakfast briefing, each time copying the entirety of the invite list in on the messages. The first email sent yesterday morning thanked participants for “registering for NHS Digital’s Full Digital Breakfast: Let’s talk ...

  • The Telegraph exposes 10 TB database with subscriber info

    October 5, 2021

    ‘The Telegraph’, one of the UK’s largest newspapers and online media outlets, has leaked 10 TB of data after failing to properly secure one of its databases. The exposed information includes internal logs, full subscriber names, email addresses, device info, URL requests, IP addresses, authentication tokens, and unique reader identifiers. Bob Diachenko, the researcher who discovered the ...

  • UK plans to invest £5 billion in retaliatory cyber-attacks

    October 4, 2021

    The United Kingdom has revealed plans to invest £5 billion in bolstering national cybersecurity that includes creating a “Cyber Force” unit to perform retaliatory attacks. Cyber-warfare is being embraced as the “fifth domain” of international conflict and is being incorporated in the core functional aspects of nations, including the military. This includes having the same level ...

  • UK: Location Of New National Cyber Force Revealed

    October 3, 2021

    The UK Government’s new National Cyber Force (NCF) will be located in Samlesbury in the North West, Defence Secretary Ben Wallace has confirmed. Samlesbury is also home to a BAE Systems site. The NCF draws together personnel from intelligence, cyber and security agency GCHQ, the Ministry of Defence (MOD), the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) and the Defence ...

  • UK MoD data strategy calls for social media surveillance on behalf of ‘local authorities’

    September 30, 2021

    The Ministry of Defence has published a data strategy that calls on the British armed forces to make better use of its “enduring strategic asset” – by spying on social media and dobbing in dissenters to local councils. In a move bound to fuel tinfoil hat-wearing conspiracy theorists, the MoD’s Data Strategy for Defence document ...