China-linked group accused of spying on phones of UK prime ministers' aides – for years

Chinese state-linked hackers are accused of spending years inside the phones of senior Downing Street officials, exposing private communications at the heart of the UK government. The Telegraph reports that the activity focused on phones used by senior aides around former prime ministers Boris Johnson, Liz Truss, and Rishi …

[VoiceOfTruth]

A bit rich of the USA to comment

What the USA doesn't say: They too have been spying on Britain.

[Doctor Syntax]

"The allegations surfaced days before current UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is due to travel to China"

What a coincidence!

[may_i]

Phones are the wrong tech

That the government allows the prime minister and cabinet members to use commodity telephones and social media apps at all is a schoolboy opsec failure.

[wolfetone]

You're telling us that a 5-eyes nation can so easily have their politicians spied on like this?

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course! Bribing them is even easier but more expensive.

[DS999]

Why does being a Five Eyes nation matter?

Proficiency in surveillance of others does not imply that one is automatically more proficient in defending against others doing it to you.

[Anonymous Coward]

Are we to infer that the UK hasn't the skills

to detect and neutralise (ideally by feeding misleading data back) these sorts of threats ?

I mean WTF is going on in Cheltenham ?

[Albert Coates]

Re: Are we to infer that the UK hasn't the skills

"I mean WTF is going on in Cheltenham ?"

Well, there's the Literature Festival in October, and a number of orchestral concerts/tribute bands in the spacious Town Hall - a couple of decent restaurants where you don't always need to book ahead, shopping in the Prom, the Races in March, the Magistrate's Court for free entertainment, Cineworld for expensive popcorn, the Bus Station if you need to go to Up Hatherley, the Cotswold Designer Outlet by the M5 featuring Dobbie's Garden Centre - what more could you possibly want?

[wolfetone]

Re: Are we to infer that the UK hasn't the skills

Cheltenham Town Hall is a great place to see live music too.

[Anonymous Coward]

Once Upon A Time, There Was A Chancellor of Germany Called Angela Merkel.....

.....who famously had her phone hacked by the USA!!!!

Maybe some hypocrisy here?

Quote (Scott McNealy, 1999): "You have zero privacy anyway. Get over it".

Of course, no one in Westminster has been paying any attention since 1999!!!!!!

Security.....pah!!! No one out there is remotely interested in what the UK might be doing!!

[JimmyPage]

Re: Once Upon A Time, There Was A Chancellor of Germany Called Angela Merkel.....

That sounds like the start of a crap limerick - lets flesh it out with ChatGPT

Once Upon A Time, There Was A Chancellor of Germany Called Angela Merkel.....

Who led Europe steady and well.

She weathered each storm,

Kept calm as the norm,

And proved quiet resolve could excel.

[Anonymous Coward]

So naturally

This will mean the Government will stop pretending that it- or any of its commercial partners- are safe repositories for data, right? With security that bad, they can't possibly think they're in any way suitable- or even able to judge who's suitable- to hold personal data. Right?

[Goodwin Sands]

Beijing’s useful idiot

Seriously doubt it's a coincidence that this espionage story is hitting the papers today, the same day the PM is jetting off to Peking. There are plenty of people in and around govt appalled by Kowtow Keir's dealings with China who will have fed the facts to Telegraph journalists for publication today for maximum embarrassment. And good on 'em for doing so!

[Jim Mitchell]

I thought it was mostly the tabloids that did the phone hacking in the UK.

[Engineer Andrew]

What was the point?

So the Chinese managed to listen to Liz Truss's phone! There are millions of deluded idiots in the world, so why did they choose her? What did they actually learn?

[Blazde]

Re: What was the point?

You've gotta feel for the Beijing analysts. I think of the three, Truss's material would actually have been the comedy interlude highlight, short-lived as it was.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: What was the point?

They were gathering data on the shelf life of lettuce in England.

[steelpillow]

One Bozo to rule them all?

You mean Bozo and his crew did not take enough care over their phone privacy? I am shocked, I tell you. Shocked. And stunned.

[Blue Screen of Bleurgh]

Will Chinese employees at the Chinese embassy be subjected to Starmer's Digital ID scheme, or will they have some kind of diplomatic immunity?

[elsergiovolador]

> Will Chinese employees at the Chinese embassy be subjected to StarmerLarry Fink's Digital ID scheme, or will they have some kind of diplomatic immunity?

FTFY

[elsergiovolador]

MI Fail

UK security services have a statutory duty to protect the state and democratic institutions. They have failed at that where it actually matters, and this story is the damp squib they’re waving instead.

Foreign influence hasn’t needed hacking. Foreign wealth, lobbyists, and “wealth managers” have gained access and shaped policy in plain sight. Digital ID is the clearest example: a sweeping policy shift nobody voted for, advanced through influence rather than consent. If decision-making can be bent that easily, obsessing over call metadata is misdirection.

Now we’re told Chinese hackers were “deep inside” UK telecoms, possibly accessing communications at the heart of Downing Street, and that this went unnoticed for years until the Americans told us. The same US intelligence and telecoms ecosystem that is currently compromised by Russian actors. UK services accepting those claims uncritically looks less like coordination and more like believing briefings as if they were born yesterday.

The reporting itself is mostly qualifiers: “may have”, “linked to”, “cluster of activity”. If attackers really reached “the heart of Downing Street”, the lack of concrete scope or technical detail is not prudence, it’s evasion.

Then there’s the procedural comedy. Senior officials travelling to high-risk countries are supposed to use disposable, tightly controlled devices, wiped or destroyed on return. That has been standard practice for years. If long-lived phones were exposed, procedures were ignored or oversight collapsed. Either way, it’s a domestic failure.

So yes, maybe there was a telecom compromise. But presenting this as the great threat to British democracy while influence walks through the front door is theatre.

If the breach was real, it proves systemic incompetence. If it wasn’t, it proves institutional desperation. Either way, the statutory duty was not met.

[MachDiamond]

When the fish is rotten...

the head stinks first.

People at the top of organizations are the sorts to demand their tech does things that are less secure then they need to be, but who can tell them "no"? If you are far more junior, IT (or whatever security department) is going to tell you that you can't have something and if you try to circumvent, you will be finding your belongings in a cardboard box at reception.

[elsergiovolador]

Re: When the fish is rotten...

In the UK, at least on paper, the law applies equally to a prime minister and to everyone else. There are clear legal and policy frameworks around handling classified material, official communications, and national security risk. If security services genuinely believed a PM or senior staff were acting negligently, or in a way that exposed protected information, they weren’t powerless spectators.

They have legal authorities, formal escalation routes, and the ability to impose controls, restrict systems, or require specific handling practices. If those powers existed and were not used, that’s negligence by the security apparatus itself, not just “the head wanting insecure toys”.

If, on the other hand, they couldn’t intervene because political convenience overrode security judgement, that’s an even bigger failure. At that point the issue isn’t rogue ministers, it’s a system where statutory safeguards collapse when they become inconvenient.

Either way, if the allegations are true, this isn’t about junior IT being unable to say no. It implies a failure across the entire security chain: policy, enforcement, oversight, and accountability.

Something at that level doesn’t get waved away with “management demanded it”. It calls for an inquiry, because the alternative explanation is that national security controls only apply to people without power.

[Blazde]

Re: When the fish is rotten...

On paper. In reality we're talking about an administration that flaunted it's own Covid laws inside #10 itself and began a politicised programme of vilifying the civil service for being too bureaucratic and getting in the way of elected Ministers. (And a later administration that came about because of that first administration's total lack of talented allies in the Tory party lead it to appoint an inexperienced ass-licker as Chancellor).

Would you want to be the mid-level GCHQ chump tasked with convincing them to use the clunky secure devices for their drunk party chat (which inevitably involved government business) instead of familiar personal devices? Risk a Dom Cummings tantrum and a smaller office with less important work starting Monday?

Boris didn't even listen to the Cabinet Secretary so what chance did anyone else have? https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2021/04/21/boris-johnson-told-change-phone-number-amid-concerns-constantly/

Boris Johnson told to change phone number .. Head of civil service says the Prime Minister's number is too widely known

And they couldn't even label China an espionage threat in a legally satisfactory way. It's been nearly 17 years we've known China stole F-35 blueprints, a program integral to British security ( https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB124027491029837401 ). It's hard to imagine a greater peace-time use for the Official Secrets Act than China's espionage over the past 20 years, but somehow they didn't know it or couldn't bring themselves to say it - I'm not sure which is worse. When we elect politicians this incompetent, the result, whatever the gory details are, is not very surprising and can't be blamed on security services (which are anyway so underfunded the US were partly financing them at the time of the Snowden leaks). Please people, use your vote more responsibly in future.

[amanfromMars 1]

Re: When the fish is rotten...

Something at that level doesn’t get waved away with “management demanded it”. It calls for an inquiry, because the alternative explanation is that national security controls only apply to people without power. ..... elsergiovolador

If the honest naked truth be told, elsergiovolador, and should such be any present reality, it warrants calls for a popular uprising or a coup d’état if repeat performances of the like of The Troubles and Kristallnacht type events and worse are not to be realised as worthy and necessary.

Who the hell, other than nobody, likes and wants rotten fish.

[MachDiamond]

Re: When the fish is rotten...

"If, on the other hand, they couldn’t intervene because political convenience overrode security judgement, that’s an even bigger failure. At that point the issue isn’t rogue ministers, it’s a system where statutory safeguards collapse when they become inconvenient."

Exactly.

In the US, a Secretary of State decided it would be easier to have her own mail server outside of government oversight. No penalties.

I pointed out that Jr's can't say no as they are rungs down on the ladder and must adhere to "the rules" where the people at the top often consider themselves above that.

[vtcodger]

If the miscreants are truly "deep inside" the telephone system, I should think that it doesn't matter what kind of phone one uses. The only safe calls would seem to be those encrypted using keys that are not negotiated over the telephone system.

[Medixstiff]

My first thought, was are these countries the ones the US told to stop using Huawei kit and if that had something to do with them being able to infiltrate the carriers

[Anonymous Coward]

Everything Is Connected.......

......this is the (Guardian, September 20 2025) phrase used to explain (?) the JLR hack.

Now.....why would this phrase spring to mind when we hear about hacks on government phones!

Wake up, people! Scott McNealy explained this in 1999: "You have zero privacy anyway. Get over it."

Yup....JLR (aka Tata Consulting) paid no attention in 2025.........

...........and the UK government has been asleep at the wheel since 1999.

[Dr. G. Freeman]

Re: Everything Is Connected.......

and the UK government has been asleep at the wheel since 1999

I'd say naptime started around 1707-ish.

Why everything's so slow these days, all the intelligence agencies, advertisers, etc snooping, slowing down the data as it goes across t'internet.

[Anonymous Coward]

It all started when…

The Chinese were unsure of how to drive from London to Barnard Castle during Covid…