According to multiple news sources including the BBC and Sky news, agents suspected of working for Russian President Vladimir Putin allegedly hacked the former prime minister’s personal phone during the Tory leadership campaign in the summer. According to the Daily Mail, up to a year’s worth of messages are thought to have been downloaded from the phone.
Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng could also be at risk of extortion as it is claimed that private conversations between the two criticising Boris Johnson were among the data that was downloaded. The Mail on Sunday also revealed earlier this month that Truss’s mobile phone number was on sale on the internet along with the phone numbers of 25 other cabinet ministers.
Former Conservative Party leader and leading Russia critic Iain Duncan Smith said: “This is what we’re up against. Russia does this all the time.”
This poses the question as to how secure our personal data really is and emphasises the importance of the services which QCC offers, such as Technical Surveillance Counter Measures (TSCM) and Mobile phone Forensics, all of which are conducted to government level standards.
Labour’s Yvette Cooper said: “There are immensely important national security issues raised by an attack like this by a hostile state which will have been taken extremely seriously by our intelligence and security agencies.”
A Government spokesperson said, “The Government has robust systems in place to protect against cyber threats. That includes regular security briefings for ministers, and advice on protecting their personal data and mitigating cyber threats.”