Category Archives: GCHQ

Foreign states targeting sensitive research at UK universities, MI5 warns

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Ministers considering more funding to protect important research sites, with China seen as a particular concern

MI5 has warned universities that hostile foreign states are targeting sensitive research, as ministers consider measures to bolster protections.

Vice-chancellors from 24 leading institutions, including Oxford, Cambridge and Imperial College London, were briefed on the threat by the domestic security service’s director general, Ken McCallum, and National Cybersecurity Centre (NCSC) chief, Felicity Oswald.

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Tory MPs urge tougher action on China after cyber-attacks

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Senior Tories say ministers not holding China to account after Beijing targeted elections watchdog and politicians

Tory MPs have urged ministers to take a tougher approach towards China after the security services confirmed Beijing-backed hackers were responsible for a cyber-attack targeting the UK elections watchdog and a surveillance operation on British politicians.

The Chinese ambassador will be summoned to explain his country’s actions, which resulted in Beijing allegedly accessing the personal details of about 40 million voters, held by the Electoral Commission.

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End government by WhatsApp, urges former GCHQ head

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Sir David Omand tells parliamentary inquiry the platform should be restricted to ‘background mood music’

The former head of GCHQ has called for an end to the government handling crises over WhatsApp, saying the platform might suit gossip and informal exchanges but is inappropriate for important decision-making.

Sir David Omand, who ran the UK intelligence service before becoming the permanent secretary of the Home Office and the Cabinet Office, criticised the way government was conducted in the pandemic and said future crises should be handled with “proper process”.

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Man jailed for life for attempted murder of US woman stationed at GCHQ

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Joshua Bowles, 29, carried out reconnaissance before stabbing victim in Cheltenham in March

A former UK intelligence worker has been jailed for life for attempting to murder an American woman who worked for the US government’s National Security Agency and was stationed at GCHQ in Gloucestershire.

Joshua Bowles punched and stabbed the woman at a leisure centre 3 miles from the UK intelligence, security and cyber-agency’s Cheltenham base after researching the woman and carrying out surveillance of her.

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UK spy agencies want to relax ‘burdensome’ laws on AI data use

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GCHQ, MI6 and MI5 propose weakening safeguards that limit training of AI models with bulk personal datasets

The UK intelligence agencies are lobbying the government to weaken surveillance laws they argue place a “burdensome” limit on their ability to train artificial intelligence models with large amounts of personal data.

The proposals would make it easier for GCHQ, MI6 and MI5 to use certain types of data, by relaxing safeguards designed to protect people’s privacy and prevent the misuse of sensitive information.

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Guantánamo detainee accuses UK agencies of complicity in his torture

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Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri wants to bring case examining alleged role of MI5, MI6 and GCHQ in his mistreatment by CIA

A Guantánamo Bay prisoner tortured by the CIA has accused British intelligence agencies of complicity in his mistreatment in a new case before one of UK’s most secretive courts.

Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, who is alleged by the US to have plotted al-Qaida’s bombing of an American naval ship, is seeking to persuade the court to consider his complaint against MI5, MI6 and GCHQ.

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GCHQ warns of fresh threat from Chinese state-sponsored hackers

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National Cyber Security Centre urges operators of critical national infrastructure to prevent hacks

The UK’s cybersecurity agency has urged operators of critical national infrastructure, including energy and telecommunications networks, to prevent Chinese state-sponsored hackers from hiding on their systems.

The National Cyber Security Centre, part of GCHQ, issued the warning after it emerged that a Chinese hacking group known as Volt Typhoon had targeted a US military outpost in the Pacific Ocean.

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Neurodiverse women sought for jobs at GCHQ and BAE Systems

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Organisations want to recruit more women with autism, dyslexia and ADHD to work in cybersecurity roles

The British spy agency GCHQ and weapons manufacturer BAE Systems have issued an appeal to attract more neurodiverse women to work for them in cybersecurity jobs.

The employers are actively seeking women with autism spectrum disorder, dyslexia, and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) for cybersecurity roles to address gaps in their workforces.

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No signs Russia is preparing to use nuclear weapon, says GCHQ boss

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UK spy chief says Kremlin does not appear to be engaged in preliminary steps despite Putin’s threats

The head of GCHQ has said the UK spy agency has not seen any indicators that Russia is preparing to use a tactical nuclear weapon in or around Ukraine despite recent bellicose statements from Vladimir Putin.

Jeremy Fleming, speaking on Tuesday morning, said it was one of GCHQ’s tasks to monitor whether the Kremlin was taking any of the preliminary steps needed before a tactical weapon was being made ready.

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GCHQ head: Putin making strategic errors due to unconstrained power

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British spy agency director to say in rare public address that Ukraine is ‘turning the tide’ against Russia

Vladimir Putin has made strategic errors in his pursuit of the war in Ukraine partly because there are so few restraints on his leadership, the head of the British spy agency GCHQ will say in a speech on Tuesday.

Russia’s soldiers are running out of supplies and munitions and initial gains made by Moscow are being reversed, Jeremy Fleming is expected to add in a rare public address.

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UK cybersecurity chiefs back plan to scan phones for child abuse images

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Heads of GCHQ and NCSC say client-side scanning could protect children and privacy at the same time

Tech companies should move ahead with controversial technology that scans for child abuse imagery on users’ phones, the technical heads of GCHQ and the UK’s National Cybersecurity Centre have said.

So-called “client-side scanning” would involve service providers such as Facebook or Apple building software that monitors communications for suspicious activity without needing to share the contents of messages with a centralised server.

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Bilderberg reconvenes in person after two-year pandemic gap

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The Washington conference, a high-level council of war, will be headlined by Jens Stoltenberg, NATO’s secretary general

Bilderberg is back with a vengeance. After a pandemic gap of two years, the elite global summit is being rebooted in a security-drenched hotel in Washington DC, with a high-powered guest list that includes the heads of NATO, the CIA, GCHQ, the US national security council, two European prime ministers, a healthy sprinkle of tech billionaires, and Henry Kissinger.

What a difference those two years have made. The western world order, which the Bilderberg group has been quietly nudging into shape for the best part of 70 years, is in all kinds of flux.

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Revealed: how UK spies incited mass murder of Indonesia’s communists

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Newly declassified papers show shocking role played by Britain in slaughter

A propaganda campaign orchestrated by Britain played a crucial part in one of the most brutal massacres of the postwar 20th century, shocking new evidence reveals.

British officials secretly deployed black propaganda in the 1960s to urge prominent Indonesians to “cut out” the “communist cancer”.

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Ransomware is biggest online threat to people in UK, spy agency chief to warn

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GCHQ cybersecurity boss sounds alarm over extortion by hackers who are mostly based in former Soviet states

Ransomware represents the biggest threat to online security for most people and businesses in the UK, the head of GCHQ’s cybersecurity arm is to warn.

Lindy Cameron, chief executive of the National Cyber Security Centre, will say in a speech that the phenomenon, where hackers encrypt data and demand payment for it to be restored, is escalating and becoming increasingly professionalised.

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GCHQ’s mass data interception violated right to privacy, court rules

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Human rights judgment follows legal challenge begun in 2013 after Edward Snowden’s whistleblowing revelations

GCHQ’s methods for bulk interception of online communications violated the right to privacy and the regime for collection of data was “not in accordance with the law”, the grand chamber of the European court of human rights has ruled.

It also found the bulk interception regime contained insufficient protections for confidential journalistic material but said the decision to operate a bulk interception regime did not of itself violate the European convention on human rights.

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People with dyslexia have skills that we need, says GCHQ

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UK surveillance agency says it has long valued neuro-diverse analysts – including Alan Turing

Apprentices on GCHQ’s scheme are four times more likely to have dyslexia than those on other organisations’ programmes, the agency has said, the result of a drive to recruit those whose brains process information differently.

GCHQ says those with dyslexia have valuable skills spotting patterns that others miss – a key area the spy agency wants to encourage as it pivots away from dead letter drops and bugging towards high-tech cybersecurity and data analysis.

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GCHQ releases ‘most difficult puzzle ever’ in honour of Alan Turing

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12 riddles linked to new £50 note featuring the codebreaker may take seven hours to crack

GCHQ has released its “most difficult puzzle ever”, a set of 12 riddles linked to design elements of the new £50 note featuring the mathematician and codebreaker Alan Turing.

The questions begin with a relatively straightforward crossword-style puzzle that starts by asking where GCHQ’s predecessor agency, where Turing worked, was based during the second world war. A two-word answer, nine letters then four, is required.

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Hackers HQ and Space Command: how UK defence budget could be spent

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Creation of specialist cyber force and artificial intelligence unit in pipeline

A specialist cyber force of several hundred British hackers has been in the works for nearly three years, although its creation has been partly held back by turf wars between the spy agency GCHQ and the Ministry of Defence, to which the unit is expected to jointly report.

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Timid, incompetent … how our spies missed Russian bid to sway Brexit

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MPs who compiled the Russia report were incredulous at Britain’s reluctance to tackle Kremlin

In September 2015 a tall young man with jet black hair and a pleasant grin made his way to Doncaster. His name was Alexander Udod. With the EU referendum vote on the horizon, Udod was attending Ukip’s annual conference. In theory he was a political observer. Actually Udod was an undercover spy, based at the Russian embassy in London.

Udod chatted with the man who would play a key role in Brexit – the Bristol businessman Arron Banks. The spy invited Banks to meet the Russian ambassador Alexander Yakovenko. What allegedly followed was a series of friendly encounters between Leave.EU and the Russians in the crucial months before the June 2016 poll: a boozy lunch, pints in a Notting Hill pub, and the offer of a Siberian gold deal. (Banks denies receiving money from Russia and previously stated his only contact with the Russian government in the run-up to the referendum consisted of “one boozy lunch” with the ambassador.)

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