Overview
- Reports cite aides to Boris Johnson, Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak as targets between 2021 and 2024, with uncertainty over whether the prime ministers’ own devices were compromised.
- The campaign leveraged access to telecommunications networks to harvest metadata and potentially intercept communications, with US officials saying attackers could record calls at will.
- Intrusions were identified publicly in 2024, yet UK authorities have only referenced a limited UK “cluster of activity” and have not detailed confirmed data loss.
- US intelligence sources indicate the operation may still be ongoing, raising concerns about exposure for Prime Minister Keir Starmer and his team as he departs for China this week.
- China’s embassy rejects the allegations as baseless, while MI5 recently warned Parliament about Chinese espionage risks and lawmakers press the government over its China policy and the approved new embassy site.