Cyber attacks carried out by Britain often remain secret.
Online warfare is not visible, but affects people’s minds. Illustration image. By Sergiy Tryapitsyn
British government hackers have carried out numerous successful attacks over the past three years. The attacks were carried out on military targets that spread false information with the support of their regime or seek to influence elections. The British intelligence service GCHQ told about this in a press release published on Tuesday, which made news Reuters.
The release does not say who the counterattacks were against. However, GCHQ accuses Russia and Iran of spreading false information.
In particular, the United States, Russia, China and Iran are known to have strong cyber activity. Britain rarely talks about its cyber attacks.
Covert operation
The attacks now reported were carried out by GCHQ, the British Armed Forces and their secret cyber force (NCF). Prior to this, Britain said it had carried out cyber attacks against ISIS in 2018.
– NFC’s work is secret and we cannot reveal the details of individual operations. “We don’t want to let the other party know that their problems are due to a cyber attack,” GCHQ said.
Britain’s cyber forces mainly aim to prevent foreign parties from interfering in democratic elections.