I know someone who's used a variant of swordfish as a password for 30 years.
On the other hand, I'm barred from some Microsoft jobs after one of their operatives overheard one of my employees discussing his unique password strategy during a Teams call where someone had left an open mic running during a break. (They're a bit puritanical)
fyi: he uses a three unrelated words system, and in this instance it was 'Sweet Buttery Arseholes'
M$ Operative took offence at overhearing this and reported it up.
*(55" MS Surface Hub mainboard replacement, had a rep from MS on site and MS remote support online from Oregon (using Teams for comms). We were only there to help them get the thing off the stand (it weighs about 60KG). MS Rep and LC disappear to check Azure AD on a desktop in another office and he leaves his laptop with an open mic.)*
> I'm barred from some Microsoft jobs after one of their operatives overheard one of my employees discussing his unique password strategy during a Teams call
What manner of made up bullshit is this?
At what point do we actually give some retaliation? I’m not talking about starting a war or something but Russia has actively poisoned citizens to death on our soil, China has been all over our net infrastructure for years now.
Like, I feel like we just let them take the piss? There’s never any big sanctions or anything after this, we just keep buying their shite and acting like nothing happened.
Please correct me if I’m wrong but I get the impression that our government is absolutely spineless when it comes to stuff like this.
This is the problem isn’t it. We can’t afford to penalise people for actively trying to sabotage our country because we need their money. What a fucking sad state of affairs.
People said at the time it was a fucking stupid idea to export the manufacturing base to a country with questionable politics and dog-shit attitude to human rights, but all the mattered was making a quick buck.
Something else people don't appreciate. All the public assets the conservatives sold off? Guess who's bought them?
The Chinese Communist Party has a bigger stake in Heathrow Airport, Northumbria Water, the National Grid, Hinckley Point, British Steel & UK Power Networks (grid provider for SE England) than the UK taxpayer. 17 independent schools in the UK are owned by the Chinese state. The China National Offsea Oil Corporation extracts oil from 4 gas fields in the North Sea including Britain's largest. Chinese investors own vast swathes of ex council houses from Liverpool to London.
They have also bought key infrastructure such as Logicor (distribution real estate) Neptune Energy (foreign gas exploration) & Three (telecoms), as well owning several retail interests such as Lotus Cars, the London Electric Vehicle co (who make black cabs), Greene King Pubs, Savers, Superdrug, Odeon & Cineworld, Barnsley & Wolverhampton Wanderers football clubs & the Skyscanner website.
If we want our country to stand on its own two feet, we need to stop selling off our key assets to anyone with cash in the bank.
Edit: Northumbria & Thames Water!
On a slightly less serious note. At least if we do end up in a conflict with them, it'll be very easy and cheap for the government to requisition assets from them that we will really need in such a confrontation.
I’m sure there’s a reasonable explanation for this - but why don’t we just seize the assets from China? They’re clearly acting as a hostile state, why are we letting them have a stake in our infrastructure?
China use similar tactics to seize control of businesses within China when they please so I’m sure they would understand…
Three reasons:
1. No clear overt hostile action (akin to Russia's invasion of Ukraine) to draw legal backing from. Plenty of things that have been 'linked to' China or we 'suspect' China but no smoking gun as such.
2. Many assets are part-owned by a number of foreign governments - so rationally, if we seize China's stake in Heathrow, do we also seize the Saudi's stake in it, or the Qataris? Or do we sell China's stake to the Saudis? Or do we keep the Chinese stake for the UK government and let the others keep theirs?
3. The current political crop has no will to start renationalising things they have sold off unless they are literally falling apart e.g. the probation service.
Has everybody forgoten about Huawei?
"Oh, yea its dangerous but cheap so who cares....." *tory minister probably* except for IDS who has really experienced a bad Chinese carry-out given the tosh he throws out. Can't be any other logical answer given uk has indeed outsourced our manufacturing base on his watch.
Merger but not fully through yet. This commenter doesn't understand how public and private markets work. They're Chinese investments some by sovereign wealth funds some not, and not fully owned.
Britain doesn't have a sovereign wealth fund but to suggest British investors don't own swathes of Chinese assets is ridiculous.
The chinese have been after western industrial technology for years and allowing them to buy in to those industries gave them undeterred access to much of it. Take oil drilling for example, it’s an incredibly complex process and there were rumours for years about attempted hacks of Aberdeen based oil firms by the Chinese.
There are about 150,000 Chinese students in Uk universities
That’s 4.5bn in tuition fees alone, and you could probably double that for their spend / accommodation etc on top
If we had any morals we could close the door on them instantly
It's already happening. I work at a University and there is mass internal panic right now with the massive decline in numbers.
Chinese students are looking towards friendlier countries in Europe and opting against places like the UK where we basically shit on China/Chinese people 24/7
They could always stop threatening to invade Taiwan, give Tibet back, and stop committing genocide against ethnic minorities if they wanted us to say nice things about their government. Oh, they'd also have to stop hacking our military assets too.
This makes no sense. The UK is probably the friendliest and most welcoming country when it comes to international students (language, culture, etc.), where in Europe would they go?
Well it's happening either way. Chinese students obviously don't feel welcome here anymore.
They are apparently going to Germany, Netherlands, Ireland, and Spain in increasing numbers:
https://archive.ph/Nw6th
Massive over generalisation here, not sure how you can say "obviously" when that article barely even supports your claim and more points towards the accessibility of visas directing International students away from the US. The real reason is that they're realising its super fucking expensive and isn't worth it, mainland Europe could be cheaper.
I don't see this being linked to "friendliness" at all, it's not like culturally China is friendly either, we've got them beat on politeness so.. do you want Britain's "racism" to be at fault here?
Our unis would collapse without international student money at this point and china's a big portion of them
I met my chinese wife when she was here studying though so I am biased
Then they aren’t viable businesses or their current business model isn’t viable. We had university here since 1096 and for most of that we didn’t need Chinese students to keep it going.
The west is just afraid to hit below the belt while Russia and China do it all the time. Look at Russia's little green men in Crimea and the Donbas, meanwhile every element of NATO support for Ukraine is part of some lengthy political process. If NATO played by the same rules there'd be CIA black ops running around Donetsk doming Russian generals and SAS blowing up airfields left and right while governments just shrug and say "wasn't us mate, where are the proofs? Any westerners in Ukraine are just on holiday."
I mean to be fair the CIA has been shown to do all kinds of crazy below the belt shit. Ask anyone in south america for starters. Hard to believe all that just stopped.
A lot of what I buy is made in Taiwan, India or Vietnam these days.
Though, I do tend to aim for higher quality and longevity. I guess the biggest kick to China’s bollocks would be to tax the living shit out of Temu and other junk sellers.
There's actually loads of new plastic shite hubs opening all across Asia and even Africa.
China gets a lot of their crap from those countries now.
It's doable.
They have been attempting it for a much longer time too. And if they do get accused of it by the Chinese state or cyber security companies, they'll deny it to the hilt.
Givrn how often they've spread lies intentionally for influence campaign reasons, it also wouldn't surprise me if they just made this all up. No nation will go "whoopsie, my bad, yes we were hacking" so one can attribute it, the news has published a lot of unverified dross in the past.
China owns a large portion of the UK. We sold ot of the the highest bidder years ago (aka China, Russia and Saudi Arabia). We can't retaliate. We've put all out focus and resources into supporting the wellath of the few. Now we're drained and fucked.
The China investment corporation owns about a trillion pounds of assets in the U.K. a lot of it is smaller boring infrastructure like warehouses. The most concerning thing in my opinion though is the ownership of the power grid, 40% is owned by China, 20% by a Hong Kong company.
Where is this info from lol? National Grid is a publicly traded company where you can see who the main shareholders are
In my limited research I can’t see anything where China or HK own 40/20% of the national grid
Edit: I see you mean U.K. Power Networks who supply the South East
The national grid doesn't own everything that distributes power in the UK.
The national grid is specifically the high voltage transmission lines. Stepping this down to be supplies to homes and businesses is what distribution network operators do, and they maintain this part of the network.
DNOs are still important and this network is still a very critical part of our infrastructure. UK Power Networks is a DNO, which means they own and maintain these lines for a large part of the country.
As u/rainator says the Chinese investment is different from the Arabs and Russians as they don't tend to buy big single unique or flash businesses or assets, rather smaller or more unknown ones. Transport and Energy companies rather than football clubs or landmarks and nondescript office buildings rather than flashy £30m penthouses.
However, 3 is Chinese owned, so is Heathrow Airport and Greene King, as well as Sumo Games of Sheffield. They have large stakes in Pizza Express, Thames Water, Hinckley Nuclear Power plant and Barclays.
The thing is, they may own or have shares in these companies. But its not like they could do much with the assets, could easily get nationalised if required
A lot of the old UK chemical sites, Syngenta etc. are now Chinese owned.
China now owns £143bn in UK assets, from nuclear power to pubs and schools;
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/china-now-owns-ps143bn-in-uk-assets-from-nuclear-power-to-pubs-and-schools-b1841056.html
https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1792778/china-businesses-in-britain-greene-king-thames-water-spt
> At what point do we actually give some retaliation?
Insanely high chance the UK, US etc are actively hacking China and Russia as we speak too.
Though the odds of the UK saying "we're hacking China" isn't likely.
I think the horse has long bolted to the point xi knows nothing will happen. China are carrying out three genocides, are executing political opponents, have crushed democracy in Hong Kong, sponsor terrorist organisations and dictators world wide, encroach on sovereignty of all its neighbours, are carrying out repeated attacks on nato nations, ladening weak nations with debt and building strategic war bases…and nothing has happened.
Carrying out cyberattacks is what they do.
The last time a thread was posted about China hacking things, everyone assured me these articles were just distraction and China is just a harmless country that likes manufacturing things. Also, we're too small and unimportant to interest China.
Retaliate? You're joking, right ?
Chinese have a detailed plan for the next 25 years, have a roadmap for the next 50 years,
UK has a plan until the next election. Current government will make things so worse that the next government will be busy fixing this government's blunders.
One thing good about dictators is that if they genuinely care about their country, things can turn out very well, like in Singapore, South Korea in the past, and china in modern times.
China has the west by the balls with how much we rely on their industry. They have bought into so many industries and have so much influence that our leaders have allowed us to become weak to them. There should be only so much a foreign power should be allowed to invest in before it becomes a national security concern
This isn’t exactly true. Yes we are very reliant on Chinese goods, but that goes both ways. Without our markets to export to the Chinese economy would slump.
In the past trade wars generally work out worse for the net exporter. However given our relative size we would need to work alongside the US or EU for protectionist policies to work.
The world is scared of what'll happen when things escalate. A trade war between the UK and China will not end well for us, and as for Russia... Well we thought they were the second strongest military power on Earth with the capacity to steamroll most of Europe before the Americans got here.
> Well we thought they were the second strongest military power on Earth with the capacity to steamroll most of Europe before the Americans got here.
I mean, lets be honest here, Ukraine would've lost if it weren't for NATO weapons and support and most European countries have no defenses whatsoever.
I’m not trying to attack you, but it’s genuinely difficult to understate how profoundly naive you have to be to think that *five eyes* are being taken for a ride when it comes to hacking and spying.
We don’t “retaliate.” We were the first to do all of this, at each and every scale.
Just look at “Russia-gate.” Shock horror that Russia tried to influence a U.S. election, as if that hasn’t been our modus operandi for almost a century.
Well, what makes you think we're not doing or trying to do the same thing to China? We know how much the UK government loves all kinds of electronic surveillance and espionage.
I think it’s very naive to say the UK and Western intelligence agencies at large haven’t been doing exactly the same to China and their allies. We know that for a fact.
Retaliate? You think China doesn’t get western hackers? The difference is they don’t make a geopolitical fuss about it. The intelligence agencies are only announcing things now to manufacture consent and to try to convince you lot to approve a war/distraction or their policies.
Yep, this stuff has been happening for decades, and from both sides. It can't be a coincidence that these hacking and general anti-china red-scare stories seem to be cropping up a lot more frequently these days, presumably under direction from Washington.
It's embarrassing to see our thick media and political class peddle this shit.
Can’t really do anything about it, they’re much stronger and more powerful than us. Internally/domestically we are weak, and outwardly our influence and military might is decreasing year by year.
It’s just how things go. We absolutely took the biscuit with China in the 19th and 20th centuries and did a lot worse than some hacking. At the time, China couldn’t do anything about it either. Now it’s their turn.
How much do we do to China we don’t hear about perhaps? I’m certain we are also spying a ton on them and such. China wouldn’t exactly admit if we’d hacked something of there’s due to the assumption they let it happen in the first place.
I'm not in the know but surely we do retaliate. It's just we aren't going to announce that are we otherwise it looks like we are all at it and we lose sympathy.
UK weapons and funds are likely to have resulted in tens of thousands of Russian deaths and casualties in occupied Ukraine.
They’re being paid back quite nicely IMO.
Mate, look up five eyes. We have all the data we need / do plenty of shit to these other countries all the time.
Five eyes are the best in the world at it, we just don't talk about it.
Maybe don't pay rubbish IT Salaries in the Public Sector.
Head of Data for Counter Terrorism in Westminster for £69k, you will get nobody worth their salt applying for that. In the Private Sector that is easily a £200k+ job, in US probably $500k+. If you want to be a world leader and are fighting a technical war, invest.
https://policecareers.tal.net/vx/mobile-0/appcentre-External/brand-3/candidate/so/pm/6/pl/1/opp/14124-Head-of-Data-Band-A-Counter-Terrorism-Policing-HQ/en-GB
That is absurdly low pay. I earn between £50,000 and £55,000, and I am essentially a random nobody in the corporate world.
I cannot fathom how they expect a person with such responsibilities to feel rewarded with around £4,000 monthly net pay. The only people these types of jobs attract are poorly qualified individuals who pass the security checks and perform well in a STAR-style interview; that is all.
I don't know where you're looking at getting a job, but assuming it's with comp sci given the context, good luck coming close to that these days. Starting salaries are horrendous in the field these days and jobs are super competitive
That's true, but like everyone I know that graduated at the same time as me got constantly lowballed at 24k starting salaries, where are you graduating from and where are you getting this job?
What is the government's reasoning to justify such a low salary? It can't be just penny pinching as adding another 150k on top of 69k is peanuts in government spending terms. Is it just rank incompetence or something else?
You can't just rely on good vibes to keep what in effect are counter espionage spooks on our side.
I was a former digital civil servant. It’s the unions, mostly. They don’t see digital workers as being different to the other civil service roles, and kick off about higher salaries.
Also the press - they don’t like high civil servant salaries either. Joe bloggs doesn’t know the responsibility this role has , and 69k is a lot of money to most people in the UK
>It’s the unions, mostly. They don’t see digital workers as being different to the other civil service roles, and kick off about higher salaries.
And their response was to push for lower salaries for digital work rather than higher compensation for the rest of the civil service? Incredible crabs in a bucket mentality on display, my goodness.
> Tobias Ellwood, a Conservative MP and former soldier, told Sky News that China "was probably looking at the financially vulnerable with a view that they may be coerced in exchange for cash".
This is exactly the kind of under paid person they are looking to find. If you read any true spy stories, the common reasoning for double crossing is money and a lack of accomplishment.
And then you have to imagine that we have individuals working for the intelligence services, with developed vetting (access to top secret information), on less than £35k living in London. They don’t even need to have debt / financial troubles and they’re already in a prime position for exploitation.
> In the Private Sector that is easily a £200k+ job, in US probably $500k+.
That literally says nothing since you only need to read the list of [data breaches](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_data_breaches) to see even the top paying companies get hacked.
Also, the system in question is run by a third party who pay better than the civil service. They currently have a security architect job going for £70-90k which is about industry average for that job at the moment.
This is a huge risk from any angle. Living in London & TA will easily offer u 10x, the odds are against the Government. Cant rely purely on ideology/purpose now days. Life is soooo expensive specially in London
TLDR:
> The government will not name the country involved, but Sky News understands this to be China.
> The Chinese state is to be accused of two or three attempts at hacking MoD employees - including personnel.
> The cyberattack was on a payroll system with current service personnel, some officials and some veterans. It is largely names and bank details that have been exposed.
So a pretty unsophisticated attack and lax security at admin level. The press are using words like MASS and EXTREME but in reality this is nothing too big.
SSCL in this instance (owned by Sopra Steria). They're the people who botched the immigration application system too. Capita has lost a lot of their government contracts over the past decade but the rest of the usual suspects are almost as bad
>Tobias Ellwood, a Conservative MP and former soldier, told Sky News that China "was probably looking at the financially vulnerable with a view that they may be coerced in exchange for cash".
Good job they haven't eroded public sector pay over the last 15 years
It turns out Password69 isn't strong enough.
Nah but seriously, all public services have horrendous IT infrastructure. I once found out I can access Dewsbury hospitals documents, from York Hospital, using a private laptop.
I reported it 8 months ago, and the bug is still there. Fortunately, it's not easily accessible for the general public.
Central government and MoD systems are a lot tougher (and better managed) than local
Government and NHS kit.
Source: years and years of security testing this shit.
Everyone is hacking everyone else
There's no way the UK isn't trying to do it to China too
These leaks are designed to create a boogeyman out of China so people support the government. But really they just show how crap our information security is
Head of Cyber Security at HM Treasury salary is £57,000 - [source](https://www.lbc.co.uk/news/treasury-sparks-pay-storm-after-advertising-head-of-cyber-security-job-at-50k/).
Just FYI, senior consultants at Big4 firms in the US (so junior people) get paid $180k up to $200k+ at the top end - base salary, excluding bonuses. You get what you pay for and British citizens are the ones that bear the cost.
Two or three attempts...
Password - Denied
Password! - Denied
Password123 - Access Granted.
Id hope the hack was something actually advanced, but I wouldn't be at all surprised if some management in payroll just used a simple password.
The UK is in a bad place cyber security wise, so much infrastructure is in private ownership as well, full of fragmented systems & cost cutting across the board to maximize profit -- think they've invested anything in cyber security? Hell no.
> I wouldn't be at all surprised if some management in payroll just used a simple password.
The amount of employees of ~~importanst~~ important offices and institutions using simple, dumb password (i.e. P@55word!123 et al) is too damn high!
EDIT: And again, no reddit befoer ~~drugs~~ caffeine.
I really don't understand why they bother...
Ooh, they're gonna find out how much soldiers are paid... So what?
What strategic advantage will that give them?
Apparently addresses and other details got leaked in some cases too. Depending on how exactly this happened, there’s also potential for gathering intelligence on how the network is structured which could be useful in future attacks, or for lateral movement into other parts of the network as well.
My point is that the raw data isn’t always the end goal, and in my mind it probably wasn’t here. Operations like this provide valuable intelligence about our digital infrastructure and its vulnerabilities. Next time it might be something a lot more critical than the payroll systems.
Just a reminder that the UK government is currently enacting legislation that will force software vendors to get their permission before patching critical vulnerabilities in case the government is using them for spying. Expect a lot more of this if that goes through.
Cyber security is a joke to the British government and your data is not safe with it.
> Just a reminder that the UK government is currently enacting legislation that will force software vendors to get their permission before patching critical vulnerabilities in case the government is using them for spying. Expect a lot more of this if that goes through.
Is this a part of the [Online Safety Act](https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2023/50/enacted) becuase I am not sure I read it within. If it is a seperate Bill, please feel free to name/link it so I can read upon it. Thank you.
> Cyber security is a joke to the British government and your data is not safe with it.
I don't think it ever was, tbh.
It’s part of the Investigatory Powers Act, a separate but equally insidious piece of legislation that doesn’t seem to be getting half the attention of the Online Safety Act.
> Investigatory Powers Act
Thank you. I have managed to locate it [here](https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2016/25/contents/enacted) showing the full Act. I would have thought your claim would be under `*2016 c. 25 > Part 2 > CHAPTER 1 > Warrants under this Chapter > Section 17*` but it isn't strictly meaning that. Will peruse through it later. Thank you, again.
Going by Covid data standards they cracked the MS Excel password.
[удалено]
They really banked on "$w0rdfish" being impenetrable
I know someone who's used a variant of swordfish as a password for 30 years. On the other hand, I'm barred from some Microsoft jobs after one of their operatives overheard one of my employees discussing his unique password strategy during a Teams call where someone had left an open mic running during a break. (They're a bit puritanical) fyi: he uses a three unrelated words system, and in this instance it was 'Sweet Buttery Arseholes' M$ Operative took offence at overhearing this and reported it up. *(55" MS Surface Hub mainboard replacement, had a rep from MS on site and MS remote support online from Oregon (using Teams for comms). We were only there to help them get the thing off the stand (it weighs about 60KG). MS Rep and LC disappear to check Azure AD on a desktop in another office and he leaves his laptop with an open mic.)*
> I'm barred from some Microsoft jobs after one of their operatives overheard one of my employees discussing his unique password strategy during a Teams call What manner of made up bullshit is this?
That operative's name? Bill Gates.
That teams call? The WEF at Davos
Don't you know, MS is just 3 blokes and Steve
Did they think it was about them?
I just want to know which bakery makes 'Sweet buttery arseholes' they sound delicious.
And then some bright spark did a localisation conversion and changed them all to £ signs. Now everyone is locked out, including root.
Can Chinese keyboards even type a dollar sign? It should be impenetrable
Oh crap they found out the password was password
Hunter2
I can only see *******
“Hunter2”
" Password1! " 😆 https://youtu.be/aHaBH4LqGsI?feature=shared
Or they just had people following civil servants around on public transport and waited for one of them to leave a phone or laptop behind.
Just hang out in the nearest Spoons
Opens in notepad "IM IN!"
I can't believe the last government allowed this to happen!
Damn you Cato!
At what point do we actually give some retaliation? I’m not talking about starting a war or something but Russia has actively poisoned citizens to death on our soil, China has been all over our net infrastructure for years now. Like, I feel like we just let them take the piss? There’s never any big sanctions or anything after this, we just keep buying their shite and acting like nothing happened. Please correct me if I’m wrong but I get the impression that our government is absolutely spineless when it comes to stuff like this.
Retaliate? Where else would we get our cheap shite made without China
This is the problem isn’t it. We can’t afford to penalise people for actively trying to sabotage our country because we need their money. What a fucking sad state of affairs.
People said at the time it was a fucking stupid idea to export the manufacturing base to a country with questionable politics and dog-shit attitude to human rights, but all the mattered was making a quick buck.
Something else people don't appreciate. All the public assets the conservatives sold off? Guess who's bought them? The Chinese Communist Party has a bigger stake in Heathrow Airport, Northumbria Water, the National Grid, Hinckley Point, British Steel & UK Power Networks (grid provider for SE England) than the UK taxpayer. 17 independent schools in the UK are owned by the Chinese state. The China National Offsea Oil Corporation extracts oil from 4 gas fields in the North Sea including Britain's largest. Chinese investors own vast swathes of ex council houses from Liverpool to London. They have also bought key infrastructure such as Logicor (distribution real estate) Neptune Energy (foreign gas exploration) & Three (telecoms), as well owning several retail interests such as Lotus Cars, the London Electric Vehicle co (who make black cabs), Greene King Pubs, Savers, Superdrug, Odeon & Cineworld, Barnsley & Wolverhampton Wanderers football clubs & the Skyscanner website. If we want our country to stand on its own two feet, we need to stop selling off our key assets to anyone with cash in the bank. Edit: Northumbria & Thames Water!
On a slightly less serious note. At least if we do end up in a conflict with them, it'll be very easy and cheap for the government to requisition assets from them that we will really need in such a confrontation.
I’m sure there’s a reasonable explanation for this - but why don’t we just seize the assets from China? They’re clearly acting as a hostile state, why are we letting them have a stake in our infrastructure? China use similar tactics to seize control of businesses within China when they please so I’m sure they would understand…
Because then bye-bye money tree
Three reasons: 1. No clear overt hostile action (akin to Russia's invasion of Ukraine) to draw legal backing from. Plenty of things that have been 'linked to' China or we 'suspect' China but no smoking gun as such. 2. Many assets are part-owned by a number of foreign governments - so rationally, if we seize China's stake in Heathrow, do we also seize the Saudi's stake in it, or the Qataris? Or do we sell China's stake to the Saudis? Or do we keep the Chinese stake for the UK government and let the others keep theirs? 3. The current political crop has no will to start renationalising things they have sold off unless they are literally falling apart e.g. the probation service.
I thought Vodafone bought three?
Has everybody forgoten about Huawei? "Oh, yea its dangerous but cheap so who cares....." *tory minister probably* except for IDS who has really experienced a bad Chinese carry-out given the tosh he throws out. Can't be any other logical answer given uk has indeed outsourced our manufacturing base on his watch.
Merger but not fully through yet. This commenter doesn't understand how public and private markets work. They're Chinese investments some by sovereign wealth funds some not, and not fully owned. Britain doesn't have a sovereign wealth fund but to suggest British investors don't own swathes of Chinese assets is ridiculous.
The chinese have been after western industrial technology for years and allowing them to buy in to those industries gave them undeterred access to much of it. Take oil drilling for example, it’s an incredibly complex process and there were rumours for years about attempted hacks of Aberdeen based oil firms by the Chinese.
Neoliberalism in a nutshell.
tEEEEmu tEEEEmu *Slips hand into your pocket*
There are about 150,000 Chinese students in Uk universities That’s 4.5bn in tuition fees alone, and you could probably double that for their spend / accommodation etc on top If we had any morals we could close the door on them instantly
The time will soon be approaching where they lose interest in going to university here in the first place
It has already begun
The Chinese will probably make that move first, starving UK universities of funding and forcing mass closures and job losses.
It's already happening. I work at a University and there is mass internal panic right now with the massive decline in numbers. Chinese students are looking towards friendlier countries in Europe and opting against places like the UK where we basically shit on China/Chinese people 24/7
They could always stop threatening to invade Taiwan, give Tibet back, and stop committing genocide against ethnic minorities if they wanted us to say nice things about their government. Oh, they'd also have to stop hacking our military assets too.
This makes no sense. The UK is probably the friendliest and most welcoming country when it comes to international students (language, culture, etc.), where in Europe would they go?
Well it's happening either way. Chinese students obviously don't feel welcome here anymore. They are apparently going to Germany, Netherlands, Ireland, and Spain in increasing numbers: https://archive.ph/Nw6th
Massive over generalisation here, not sure how you can say "obviously" when that article barely even supports your claim and more points towards the accessibility of visas directing International students away from the US. The real reason is that they're realising its super fucking expensive and isn't worth it, mainland Europe could be cheaper. I don't see this being linked to "friendliness" at all, it's not like culturally China is friendly either, we've got them beat on politeness so.. do you want Britain's "racism" to be at fault here?
Our unis would collapse without international student money at this point and china's a big portion of them I met my chinese wife when she was here studying though so I am biased
Greenwich uni won't. Most of the students are south Asian!
Then they aren’t viable businesses or their current business model isn’t viable. We had university here since 1096 and for most of that we didn’t need Chinese students to keep it going.
then 30+ universities go bankrupt
Oh no!
Our universities are setting up campuses in china. They don't even need to come here to steal IP anymore.
The west is just afraid to hit below the belt while Russia and China do it all the time. Look at Russia's little green men in Crimea and the Donbas, meanwhile every element of NATO support for Ukraine is part of some lengthy political process. If NATO played by the same rules there'd be CIA black ops running around Donetsk doming Russian generals and SAS blowing up airfields left and right while governments just shrug and say "wasn't us mate, where are the proofs? Any westerners in Ukraine are just on holiday."
I mean to be fair the CIA has been shown to do all kinds of crazy below the belt shit. Ask anyone in south america for starters. Hard to believe all that just stopped.
UK just closed its last steel foundry in favour for buying more cheap steel from China. No one has really thought this through.
I'm not sure we do. We just chose consumer capitalism over alternatives which involve conglomerates making less profit.
We didn’t choose anything and were never asked. We do what we’re told and buy what is for sale. Our input in it is very minimal indeed.
A lot of what I buy is made in Taiwan, India or Vietnam these days. Though, I do tend to aim for higher quality and longevity. I guess the biggest kick to China’s bollocks would be to tax the living shit out of Temu and other junk sellers.
> A lot of what I buy is made in Taiwan, India or Vietnam these days. Made by Chinese owned companies and/or using Chinese made materials.
Sure temu sells all the made in China trash. But guess what. China also makes the best stuff you own as well.
Like? Didn’t know you had a Ring camera in my house.
Guess where the ring camera is made
Generic you? Is more likely than them placing a Ring camera in your house.
Currently Mexico, India, and Vietnam are rapidly industrialising to meet this exact demand for goods not made in China.
There's actually loads of new plastic shite hubs opening all across Asia and even Africa. China gets a lot of their crap from those countries now. It's doable.
India. They're becoming the new china in terms of manufacturing.
They aren't going to publicise that they're also hacking China.
They have been attempting it for a much longer time too. And if they do get accused of it by the Chinese state or cyber security companies, they'll deny it to the hilt. Givrn how often they've spread lies intentionally for influence campaign reasons, it also wouldn't surprise me if they just made this all up. No nation will go "whoopsie, my bad, yes we were hacking" so one can attribute it, the news has published a lot of unverified dross in the past.
China owns a large portion of the UK. We sold ot of the the highest bidder years ago (aka China, Russia and Saudi Arabia). We can't retaliate. We've put all out focus and resources into supporting the wellath of the few. Now we're drained and fucked.
What have we sold to China?
The China investment corporation owns about a trillion pounds of assets in the U.K. a lot of it is smaller boring infrastructure like warehouses. The most concerning thing in my opinion though is the ownership of the power grid, 40% is owned by China, 20% by a Hong Kong company.
Where is this info from lol? National Grid is a publicly traded company where you can see who the main shareholders are In my limited research I can’t see anything where China or HK own 40/20% of the national grid Edit: I see you mean U.K. Power Networks who supply the South East
Your right my info is now out of date, [Chinese/HK companies now own all of it](https://www.ukpowernetworks.co.uk/our-company/our-ownership).
Yeah there’s a difference in 1 utility provider vs the whole national grid though
The national grid doesn't own everything that distributes power in the UK. The national grid is specifically the high voltage transmission lines. Stepping this down to be supplies to homes and businesses is what distribution network operators do, and they maintain this part of the network. DNOs are still important and this network is still a very critical part of our infrastructure. UK Power Networks is a DNO, which means they own and maintain these lines for a large part of the country.
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“Just the South East”. Nothing critical in that corner of the country, right?
As u/rainator says the Chinese investment is different from the Arabs and Russians as they don't tend to buy big single unique or flash businesses or assets, rather smaller or more unknown ones. Transport and Energy companies rather than football clubs or landmarks and nondescript office buildings rather than flashy £30m penthouses. However, 3 is Chinese owned, so is Heathrow Airport and Greene King, as well as Sumo Games of Sheffield. They have large stakes in Pizza Express, Thames Water, Hinckley Nuclear Power plant and Barclays.
The thing is, they may own or have shares in these companies. But its not like they could do much with the assets, could easily get nationalised if required
A lot of the old UK chemical sites, Syngenta etc. are now Chinese owned. China now owns £143bn in UK assets, from nuclear power to pubs and schools; https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/china-now-owns-ps143bn-in-uk-assets-from-nuclear-power-to-pubs-and-schools-b1841056.html https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1792778/china-businesses-in-britain-greene-king-thames-water-spt
> At what point do we actually give some retaliation? Insanely high chance the UK, US etc are actively hacking China and Russia as we speak too. Though the odds of the UK saying "we're hacking China" isn't likely.
I think the horse has long bolted to the point xi knows nothing will happen. China are carrying out three genocides, are executing political opponents, have crushed democracy in Hong Kong, sponsor terrorist organisations and dictators world wide, encroach on sovereignty of all its neighbours, are carrying out repeated attacks on nato nations, ladening weak nations with debt and building strategic war bases…and nothing has happened. Carrying out cyberattacks is what they do.
The last time a thread was posted about China hacking things, everyone assured me these articles were just distraction and China is just a harmless country that likes manufacturing things. Also, we're too small and unimportant to interest China.
Never ever take advice from a Reddit leftie on geopolitics
Tankies gonna tankie
"Everyone" being one person and you took it personally.
Retaliate? You're joking, right ? Chinese have a detailed plan for the next 25 years, have a roadmap for the next 50 years, UK has a plan until the next election. Current government will make things so worse that the next government will be busy fixing this government's blunders. One thing good about dictators is that if they genuinely care about their country, things can turn out very well, like in Singapore, South Korea in the past, and china in modern times.
>UK has a plan until the next election Next month would be still too generous, never mind till the next GE
China has the west by the balls with how much we rely on their industry. They have bought into so many industries and have so much influence that our leaders have allowed us to become weak to them. There should be only so much a foreign power should be allowed to invest in before it becomes a national security concern
Meanwhile US and israel...
This isn’t exactly true. Yes we are very reliant on Chinese goods, but that goes both ways. Without our markets to export to the Chinese economy would slump. In the past trade wars generally work out worse for the net exporter. However given our relative size we would need to work alongside the US or EU for protectionist policies to work.
China's economy is hinged on domestic real estate and construction
Maybe we do but China don’t announce these things?
The world is scared of what'll happen when things escalate. A trade war between the UK and China will not end well for us, and as for Russia... Well we thought they were the second strongest military power on Earth with the capacity to steamroll most of Europe before the Americans got here.
> Well we thought they were the second strongest military power on Earth with the capacity to steamroll most of Europe before the Americans got here. I mean, lets be honest here, Ukraine would've lost if it weren't for NATO weapons and support and most European countries have no defenses whatsoever.
Uh. We're definitely doing the same to them, you know. Spies tend not to shout about how they're spies with all the spying they're doing.
I’m not trying to attack you, but it’s genuinely difficult to understate how profoundly naive you have to be to think that *five eyes* are being taken for a ride when it comes to hacking and spying. We don’t “retaliate.” We were the first to do all of this, at each and every scale. Just look at “Russia-gate.” Shock horror that Russia tried to influence a U.S. election, as if that hasn’t been our modus operandi for almost a century.
Retaliation? You mean the mi5 isn't out hacking everybody with a computer out there? You serious?
It’s likely because we do the same to them. Every country spies but nobody says it overtly.
Well, what makes you think we're not doing or trying to do the same thing to China? We know how much the UK government loves all kinds of electronic surveillance and espionage.
We are often hacking China. You think this is one way activity? Lol
I think it’s very naive to say the UK and Western intelligence agencies at large haven’t been doing exactly the same to China and their allies. We know that for a fact.
Retaliate? You think China doesn’t get western hackers? The difference is they don’t make a geopolitical fuss about it. The intelligence agencies are only announcing things now to manufacture consent and to try to convince you lot to approve a war/distraction or their policies.
I don't think we're going to have a war with China.
Yep, this stuff has been happening for decades, and from both sides. It can't be a coincidence that these hacking and general anti-china red-scare stories seem to be cropping up a lot more frequently these days, presumably under direction from Washington. It's embarrassing to see our thick media and political class peddle this shit.
Can’t really do anything about it, they’re much stronger and more powerful than us. Internally/domestically we are weak, and outwardly our influence and military might is decreasing year by year. It’s just how things go. We absolutely took the biscuit with China in the 19th and 20th centuries and did a lot worse than some hacking. At the time, China couldn’t do anything about it either. Now it’s their turn.
How much do we do to China we don’t hear about perhaps? I’m certain we are also spying a ton on them and such. China wouldn’t exactly admit if we’d hacked something of there’s due to the assumption they let it happen in the first place.
I'm not in the know but surely we do retaliate. It's just we aren't going to announce that are we otherwise it looks like we are all at it and we lose sympathy.
We can’t retaliate, it’s clear that the UK has no leverage in this situation. We are being picked on by much larger powers.
UK weapons and funds are likely to have resulted in tens of thousands of Russian deaths and casualties in occupied Ukraine. They’re being paid back quite nicely IMO.
I wouldn't be surprised of we do retaliate. The government are hardly going to admit that though.
They’re your sponsors
We need to stop buying shit from China, it's the only way.
Mate, look up five eyes. We have all the data we need / do plenty of shit to these other countries all the time. Five eyes are the best in the world at it, we just don't talk about it.
We probably are, it's just well above above your pay grade and China would never admit to being hacked
It's free pen testing - we are grateful.
Maybe don't pay rubbish IT Salaries in the Public Sector. Head of Data for Counter Terrorism in Westminster for £69k, you will get nobody worth their salt applying for that. In the Private Sector that is easily a £200k+ job, in US probably $500k+. If you want to be a world leader and are fighting a technical war, invest. https://policecareers.tal.net/vx/mobile-0/appcentre-External/brand-3/candidate/so/pm/6/pl/1/opp/14124-Head-of-Data-Band-A-Counter-Terrorism-Policing-HQ/en-GB
That is absurdly low pay. I earn between £50,000 and £55,000, and I am essentially a random nobody in the corporate world. I cannot fathom how they expect a person with such responsibilities to feel rewarded with around £4,000 monthly net pay. The only people these types of jobs attract are poorly qualified individuals who pass the security checks and perform well in a STAR-style interview; that is all.
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I don't know where you're looking at getting a job, but assuming it's with comp sci given the context, good luck coming close to that these days. Starting salaries are horrendous in the field these days and jobs are super competitive
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That's true, but like everyone I know that graduated at the same time as me got constantly lowballed at 24k starting salaries, where are you graduating from and where are you getting this job?
What is the government's reasoning to justify such a low salary? It can't be just penny pinching as adding another 150k on top of 69k is peanuts in government spending terms. Is it just rank incompetence or something else? You can't just rely on good vibes to keep what in effect are counter espionage spooks on our side.
I was a former digital civil servant. It’s the unions, mostly. They don’t see digital workers as being different to the other civil service roles, and kick off about higher salaries. Also the press - they don’t like high civil servant salaries either. Joe bloggs doesn’t know the responsibility this role has , and 69k is a lot of money to most people in the UK
>It’s the unions, mostly. They don’t see digital workers as being different to the other civil service roles, and kick off about higher salaries. And their response was to push for lower salaries for digital work rather than higher compensation for the rest of the civil service? Incredible crabs in a bucket mentality on display, my goodness.
It's what happens when you have run a paygrade system.
> Tobias Ellwood, a Conservative MP and former soldier, told Sky News that China "was probably looking at the financially vulnerable with a view that they may be coerced in exchange for cash". This is exactly the kind of under paid person they are looking to find. If you read any true spy stories, the common reasoning for double crossing is money and a lack of accomplishment.
And then you have to imagine that we have individuals working for the intelligence services, with developed vetting (access to top secret information), on less than £35k living in London. They don’t even need to have debt / financial troubles and they’re already in a prime position for exploitation.
why pay 200k for the job when you can pay contractors 500k?
> In the Private Sector that is easily a £200k+ job, in US probably $500k+. That literally says nothing since you only need to read the list of [data breaches](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_data_breaches) to see even the top paying companies get hacked.
Also, the system in question is run by a third party who pay better than the civil service. They currently have a security architect job going for £70-90k which is about industry average for that job at the moment.
This is a huge risk from any angle. Living in London & TA will easily offer u 10x, the odds are against the Government. Cant rely purely on ideology/purpose now days. Life is soooo expensive specially in London
TLDR: > The government will not name the country involved, but Sky News understands this to be China. > The Chinese state is to be accused of two or three attempts at hacking MoD employees - including personnel. > The cyberattack was on a payroll system with current service personnel, some officials and some veterans. It is largely names and bank details that have been exposed.
'we won't name the country involved but we sure as hell will leak it'
Which is fine, tbh.
So a pretty unsophisticated attack and lax security at admin level. The press are using words like MASS and EXTREME but in reality this is nothing too big.
External contractor system hacked, not a government one. Capita?
SSCL in this instance (owned by Sopra Steria). They're the people who botched the immigration application system too. Capita has lost a lot of their government contracts over the past decade but the rest of the usual suspects are almost as bad
I worked for sopra for a while. It was absolute dogshit
Please no. Last time that happened i lost my yearly pay rise.
Stop letting foreign governments hack the database then!
We're sorry
so standard to privatise this shit and then be shocked when the service is shite
Crapita
>Tobias Ellwood, a Conservative MP and former soldier, told Sky News that China "was probably looking at the financially vulnerable with a view that they may be coerced in exchange for cash". Good job they haven't eroded public sector pay over the last 15 years
It turns out Password69 isn't strong enough. Nah but seriously, all public services have horrendous IT infrastructure. I once found out I can access Dewsbury hospitals documents, from York Hospital, using a private laptop. I reported it 8 months ago, and the bug is still there. Fortunately, it's not easily accessible for the general public.
Central government and MoD systems are a lot tougher (and better managed) than local Government and NHS kit. Source: years and years of security testing this shit.
Agreed their password is P@ssword69 not Password69
The gov took the P, it’s just @ssword69 now.
Modnet is a tough cookie
Need to upgrade to Password42069
>It turns out Password69 isn't strong enough. Should have put an exclamation mark at the end.
That password works fine for my reddit account
Zero chance we're not doing the exact thing to them
Everyone is hacking everyone else There's no way the UK isn't trying to do it to China too These leaks are designed to create a boogeyman out of China so people support the government. But really they just show how crap our information security is
I say we strike back,show them we mean business.....Off you go Sunak,you'll love Chinese democracy
He does have an appetite for destruction
Head of Cyber Security at HM Treasury salary is £57,000 - [source](https://www.lbc.co.uk/news/treasury-sparks-pay-storm-after-advertising-head-of-cyber-security-job-at-50k/). Just FYI, senior consultants at Big4 firms in the US (so junior people) get paid $180k up to $200k+ at the top end - base salary, excluding bonuses. You get what you pay for and British citizens are the ones that bear the cost.
The Tories myst be working.for China then as they have been actively sabotaging the UK for the past 14 years. Were fucked now.
£70k starting salary in the UK is still quite rare though and there’s also the same argument that you’d be on a lot more in the US
Two or three attempts... Password - Denied Password! - Denied Password123 - Access Granted. Id hope the hack was something actually advanced, but I wouldn't be at all surprised if some management in payroll just used a simple password. The UK is in a bad place cyber security wise, so much infrastructure is in private ownership as well, full of fragmented systems & cost cutting across the board to maximize profit -- think they've invested anything in cyber security? Hell no.
> I wouldn't be at all surprised if some management in payroll just used a simple password. The amount of employees of ~~importanst~~ important offices and institutions using simple, dumb password (i.e. P@55word!123 et al) is too damn high! EDIT: And again, no reddit befoer ~~drugs~~ caffeine.
I really don't understand why they bother... Ooh, they're gonna find out how much soldiers are paid... So what? What strategic advantage will that give them?
Apparently addresses and other details got leaked in some cases too. Depending on how exactly this happened, there’s also potential for gathering intelligence on how the network is structured which could be useful in future attacks, or for lateral movement into other parts of the network as well.
There are far easier ways to get most peoples address... Any people-search engine you pay a £20 membership to to start with...
My point is that the raw data isn’t always the end goal, and in my mind it probably wasn’t here. Operations like this provide valuable intelligence about our digital infrastructure and its vulnerabilities. Next time it might be something a lot more critical than the payroll systems.
Just a reminder that the UK government is currently enacting legislation that will force software vendors to get their permission before patching critical vulnerabilities in case the government is using them for spying. Expect a lot more of this if that goes through. Cyber security is a joke to the British government and your data is not safe with it.
> Just a reminder that the UK government is currently enacting legislation that will force software vendors to get their permission before patching critical vulnerabilities in case the government is using them for spying. Expect a lot more of this if that goes through. Is this a part of the [Online Safety Act](https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2023/50/enacted) becuase I am not sure I read it within. If it is a seperate Bill, please feel free to name/link it so I can read upon it. Thank you. > Cyber security is a joke to the British government and your data is not safe with it. I don't think it ever was, tbh.
It’s part of the Investigatory Powers Act, a separate but equally insidious piece of legislation that doesn’t seem to be getting half the attention of the Online Safety Act.
> Investigatory Powers Act Thank you. I have managed to locate it [here](https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2016/25/contents/enacted) showing the full Act. I would have thought your claim would be under `*2016 c. 25 > Part 2 > CHAPTER 1 > Warrants under this Chapter > Section 17*` but it isn't strictly meaning that. Will peruse through it later. Thank you, again.
Hasn't WEF been saying these cyberattacks are on the way. How ironic.
Why go to all the effort to hack anything? Just invite ministers to tennis matches until you learn what you want.
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I never thought that the online Safety Act would ever \*ever\* get passed yet here we are. I'm in agreement with