Britain’s security services successfully thwarted a plan by Russian hackers to disrupt Whitehall departments and UK broadcasters in the run-up to last year’s General Election.
The BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Sky were involved in what David Anderson QC, the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, described the incident as a “possible imminent threat” to the UK. The Sunday Times reports that Anderson said the government’s monitoring agency GCHQ “deployed a capability to protect government networks from this cyber-attacker”.
The information was revealed in a previously unnoticed report released in July. Broadcasters were warned of the potential threat and advised to take action.
British security officials have told the paper the group plotting the attack was Fancy Bears, also known as APT28 and Sofacy, the same group that last April brought down the French international broadcaster TV5 Monde.
Within a few seconds of the April 8th attack, all of TV5’s channels stopped broadcasting, and it also lost control of its sites and social profiles. On screen messages declared allegiance to ISIS.
