UK replaces US as “No. 1 target” for Russian cyberattacks

Russia has shifted the focus of its cyberattacks to the UK, with Russian President Vladimir Putin reportedly seeking to avoid offending his US counterpart, Donald Trump.

Trump’s patience with the Russian president may be wearing thin after Moscow refused to engage meaningfully towards ending its brutal war against Ukraine, but the Kremlin appears to have taken steps to at least try and maintain as low a profile in Washington as possible.

This means redirecting its state-sponsored cyberattacks away from the American shores and closer to home. The UK has remained a vocal Kremlin critic even while the US toned down its rhetoric following Trump’s re-election.

Britain has become the new “No. 1 target” for Russian cyberattacks and espionage, as President Putin seeks to avoid provoking his US counterpart and as UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s international profile rises, according to The Times.

Unnamed government sources told the publication that there had been a surge in the number of Russian hybrid attacks on the UK since January, including cyberattacks and sabotage attempts targeting key infrastructure.

According to a senior government official, the surge in attacks on British instead of American targets can be explained by Trump’s warmer posture towards Putin compared with the previous US administration.

The shift was also evident in Russian propaganda, the source said, adding, “If only the British state were as powerful as they claim.”

The British intelligence community has long warned that the country’s key infrastructure objects are under “sustained attack” from Russia and a number of state-backed agents, The Times reported.

Moscow may once again re-align the targets of its cyberattacks as President Trump is taking a harder line on Moscow after his talks with Putin failed to lead to a peace agreement with Ukraine, and Russia intensifies its attacks on Ukrainian cities.

Trump said Monday (July 14th) that the US would send Ukraine “various pieces of very sophisticated military,” including Patriot long-range missile systems, because Putin “talks nice and then he bombs everybody in the evening.”

Barrage of cyberattacks

Ken McCallum, head of Britain’s domestic intelligence agency MI5, warned in October last year that Russia wanted to create “sustained mayhem on British and European streets.”

In May, the country’s Ministry of Defence said that it had repelled 90,000 cyberattacks linked to hostile states over the past two years, with many described as “indirect” and coming from proxies linked to the Russian government.

Prime Minister Starmer had to abandon his email in 2022, when he was still the UK’s opposition leader, due to suspected Russian hacking.

In 2022, then-foreign secretary Liz Truss also had her phone reportedly hacked by the Russians, with “highly sensitive” exchanges exposed, including details about arms shipments to Ukraine.

Last year, the British armed forces suffered a data breach, with China suspected of being behind the attack, while a Russian state-affiliated cyber group reportedly gained access to Home Office systems.

In a stark warning published last week, the National Audit Office said that the cyber threat to the British government was “severe and advancing quickly.” The watchdog said that the government still uses at least 228 legacy systems and “does not know how vulnerable these are to cyberattacks.”