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MARK ALMOND: A chilling reminder that no one is safe from the crooks in Moscow and Beijing
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British electronic spy agency GCHQ has built up an unrivaled reputation as a pioneer of code deciphering since the days of Alan Turing in World War II.
It remained on the cutting edge of intercepting our adversaries’ communications during the Cold War, and is doing the same remarkable job today.
But Britain’s success in hacking into the conspiracy of other world leaders should not blind us to the skills of our rivals, or their relentless attacks on our own institutions and those who run them.
It’s a point made painfully clear by the revelation that Liz Truss — a former foreign secretary and prime minister — had her phone hacked and that her private information may have been stolen by the Russians. Moscow has long tried to steal our secrets. Now that we are in a proxy war over Ukraine, his efforts have intensified.
Vladimir Putin’s spy masters target Whitehall as much as Kiev. It is an important goal to find out what our leaders are discussing and what information they are sharing with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. And it may seem less direct, but we are also in a proxy war with China.
Vladimir Putin’s spy masters target Whitehall as much as Kiev. It is an important goal to find out what our leaders are discussing and what information they are sharing with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. And it may seem less direct, but we are also in a proxy war with China
It’s a point made painfully clear by the revelation that Liz Truss — a former Secretary of State and Prime Minister — had her phone hacked and her private information is believed to have been stolen by the Russians, Mark Almond writes.
Vladimir Putin’s spy masters target Whitehall as much as Kiev. It is an important goal to find out what our leaders are discussing and what information they are sharing with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. And it may seem less direct, but we are also in a proxy war with China
This is a state that we know is adept at stealing military and commercial information — and determined to spread its evil tentacles around the world.
How much of Putin’s information will be passed on to Chinese President Xi, without whose tacit support no invasion of Ukraine could have taken place?
For both antagonists, the battlefield is digital and both have invested in ghosts specializing in artificial intelligence.
Armies of well-trained hackers are at work. Bunkers are filled with the fastest computers that scroll through the world’s electronic data to rip vital information from countless gigabytes, scrutinizing the entire digi-universe to discover vulnerabilities. Careless WhatsApping costs lives, or at least reputations.
Putin has long been an expert at using “kompromat” to discredit his domestic rivals with any juicy scandal his agents might uncover through wiretapped phone calls and illegally obtained video.
Perhaps the very success of GCHQ has made our own leaders complacent. But the theft of Ms. Truss’s data should wake up the rest of us, too. we slept
Perhaps the very success of GCHQ has made our own leaders complacent. But the theft of Ms. Truss’s data should wake up the rest of us, too. We slept.
How many of us really pay attention to digital security? It is a time consuming chore. But it matters. The truth is that nothing is digitally hack-proof. Nothing. Putin knows this all too well, which is why he is personally reluctant to use a laptop or cell phone.
It is time for voters and politicians alike to recognize that our belief in the breakneck advancement of artificial intelligence is naive. Far from making us safer, it threatens our security.
Then there is the human factor. Would we be surprised if ambitious politicians were the kind of people who assumed that annoying security rules are for the lower ranks? For example, I wouldn’t do it.
As the Russians themselves say: ‘The fish rots from the head down.’
- Mark Almond is director of the Crisis Research Institute, Oxford.