UK Foreign Office systems hacked by suspected Chinese group: Reports

London: The UK Foreign Office systems containing sensitive documents were targeted by suspected Chinese hackers a few months ago, according to UK media reports on Friday.

UK Trade minister Chris Bryant told ‘Sky News’ that it is “not entirely clear” who is responsible for the hack. However, ‘The Sun’ newspaper reported that a Chinese group of hackers known as Storm-1849 targeted Foreign Office servers and had accessed information relating to visa details, with “thousands” of confidential documents and data stolen. “There certainly has been a hack at the FCDO , and we’ve been aware of that since October,” said Bryant.

“We managed to close the hole, as it were, very quickly,” he said. Pointing to other recent high-profile cyber-attacks in the UK of Marks and Spencer, Jaguar Land Rover and the British Library, the minister said:

“All of these are really important things for us to tackle and be aware of and prevent wherever possible.

“Some of the reporting has, I think, been a bit more speculation than accurate.”

“And we’re fairly confident that there’s a low risk of any individual actually being affected by this. I know that some of the reports have said, potentially, various things could happen. I think that that’s a bit more speculation than is helpful. So, I don’t want to scaremonger about this. We are on top of it.