Mark Galeotti Mark Galeotti

These Russian cyber-attacks are a wake up call for the UK

Days before the release of the becalmed Intelligence & Security Committee (ISC) report on Russian political interference, we suddenly started to hear news of Moscow’s meddling on Thursday. It’s almost as if the government, sensitive about appearing like it wants to bury the report, suddenly wants to steal the thunder and look serious. Surely not.

Putting cynicism aside, it is worth taking a proper look at these two new stories of Russian interference and what they tell us about what Moscow is and isn’t doing – and, more to the point, what it can and cannot do.

The first story is a leak about a leak. Ahead of the ISC report, the government on Thursday confirmed what we pretty much all knew anyway: that a genuine document about British trade talks with the Americans, used by Labour during the 2019 general election, was publicised by Russians posing as whistleblowers.

After the document first leaked, a Russian network of online infowarriors – codenamed Secondary Infektion – spent weeks trying to get someone, anyone, to pay attention to it. Eventually, by directly emailing journalists, the group managed to get people to notice the report, and for a day or two Jeremy Corbyn eagerly made hay with it, claiming it proved the NHS was ‘up for sale’.

We are not so much in an arms race as an imagination race, as we try to guess what the next threat will be

He then went on to the largest election defeat since 1935. If the aim was to influence the election in any meaningful way, this must count as an abject failure.

The second story is more current. The National Cyber Security Centre has warned that a Russian cyber-espionage unit known APT29 (Advanced Persistent Threat 29) – or more fancifully as ‘The Dukes’ and ‘Cozy Bear’ – has been trying to hack into various organisations in the UK, Canada and the USA which are involved in Covid-19 vaccine development.

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