Fergie's Tech Blog

UK: Chinese Hackers Also 'Raid Whitehall Computers'

Richard Spencer and Ben Quinn write in The Telegraph.co.uk:

Hackers with links to China's military were last night accused of waging a long-term campaign to penetrate the computer networks of British government departments.

A day after China denied that it was the hidden hand behind hackers who breached Pentagon security networks in the US, ''cyberwarriors'' acting at the behest of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) were blamed for breaking into networks at the Foreign Office and other departments.

The ''virtual'' attacks on the Pentagon were described yesterday by experts as "a wake-up call" to those in charge of safeguarding the security of British governmental secrets. So-called ''Cyber attacks'' on governmental networks in the UK by Chinese hackers are thought to have been going on for at least four years, according to a report in The Guardian.

The campaign was responsible for an incident last year that shut down part of the House of Commons computer system, according to Whitehall officials.

posted by Fergie @ 9/04/2007 10:10:00 PM