Ministers ‘pretty confident’ visa details not compromised in Foreign Office hack
Ministers are “fairly confident” that visa applicants’ information has not been compromised by a hack of Foreign Office data as claimed by a Chinese group.
It comes amid reports claiming a Beijing-linked cyber gang had targeted government servers and accessed information on visa details, as well as fears that thousands of confidential documents and data had been compromised in a data breach two months ago.
Sources told Sun The group Storm 1849 was responsible for the attack in October, a Chinese organization whose name was made public in March 2024 in connection with cyber attacks on MPs and the Electoral Commission.
The newspaper reported that “thousands” of confidential documents and data were compromised in the data breach.
Business Secretary Sir Chris Bryant admitted there was “certainly a hack” but refused to say whether a China-linked group was behind it and claimed wider reports were entirely untrue.
Speaking to Times Radio, Sir Chris said: “I’m actually going to address some of the details you’ve just brought out because I’m not sure they’re entirely accurate.
“You just mentioned that potentially thousands of visas will be affected. From our investigation so far, we are extremely confident that no one, no individual will be harmed or endangered by what has happened.”
“There was definitely a hack, I can say that, I can’t say whether it was directly related to Chinese agents or the Chinese state.”
He added: “We have been carrying out an investigation since October, as we have on (Jaguar Land Rover), M&S, the British Library and a number of other cyber attacks, it takes some time to get to the bottom of exactly what happened.”
The latest reports come as ongoing unrest following the collapse of a spy case in China and MI5 warnings about the threat posed by the communist state to Britain’s national security are adding to the difficulties for the government as it tries to ease tensions with Beijing.
Last week the parliamentary intelligence watchdog issued a stark warning about the threat posed by China, saying the government should stop “dragging its feet” on whether to add the country to the advanced tier of the threat regime.
A government spokesman said: “We are working to investigate a cyber incident. We take the security of our systems and data extremely seriously.”
