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Disturbing news that the Royal Household has been forced to make security upgrades in countering the cyber threat from Russia, highlights how The Eye too has been targeted.
Treasury minister Dan Tomlinson has revealed that extra money had been approved, and that a portion of the annual Sovereign Grant would go towards upgrading Buckingham Palace’s “ageing” cybersecurity.
This decision comes amid growing tensions between the United Kingdom (UK) and Russia after a US intelligence assessment shed light on the possibility of a “limited” attack by Russia on NATO countries in the next few years, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) has reported. “This could range from a cyber-attack to a small-scale incursion”, the publication added.
US Ambassador to NATO Matt Whitaker has warned that ally countries within the organisation should prepare for a possible Russian assault. “You can’t predict what Vladimir Putin’s going to do or any adversary. All you can do is be prepared for it and deter and make it not worth their time to make that move”, he declared.
The WSJ has previously reported that Russia appears to be operating in a “grey zone”, using non-war actions to gain power without prompting a full military response.
The cybersecurity updates come nearly three years after a pro-Russian hacker group called KillNet took the Royal Family’s website offline for an hour and a half.
Although tiny in comparison to other threats, like others, we have also attracted the unwanted attention of those connected to Russian authorities.
Our site always used to get a couple of ‘allow requests’ from e-mail addresses with the .ru (Russia) ending, but recently this has increased massively, and at one point there were four or five A DAY!
The details about the Royal Household are set against a worrying backdrop, as Viginum, the French foreign-disinformation watchdog, announced it had detected preparations for a large disinformation campaign in France, Germany, Poland and other European countries.
Russia has been at the forefront of internet disinformation techniques at least since 2014, when it pioneered the use of bot farms to spread fake news about its invasion of Crimea.
Viginum said it had come across a Russian network of 193 websites which it codenames ‘Portal Kombat’.
Most of these sites, such as topnews.uz.ua, were created years ago and many were left dormant. But over 50 of them, such as news-odessa.ru and pravda-en.com, have been created since 2022.
French authorities think they are ready to be activated aggressively as part of what one official calls a “massive” wave of Russian disinformation.
Viginum stated that it closely watched the sites over several months, and managers there have concluded they do not themselves generate news stories, but are designed to spread “deceptive or false” content about the war in Ukraine, both on websites and via social media.
The underlying objective it would seem, is to undermine support for Ukraine in Europe, and according to the French authorities, the network is controlled by a single Russian organisation.
Apart from the Royal Household, the UK has suffered generally as well.
It is declared on the UK Government’s website: “Russia is one of the world’s most prolific cyber actors and dedicate significant resource into conducting cyber operations around the globe. The UK government has publicly attributed malign cyber activity to parts of three Russian Intelligence services: the FSB, SVR and GRU, with each having their own remits“.
Alarming information like this comes after a dire warning from Sir Ken McCallum, who has been the Director General of MI5 since 2020, and warned that the UK needed to “defend itself robustly” against security threats. He said that Russia had carried out operations which were “routinely” being uncovered.
Perhaps they are not all being ‘uncovered’, if the Royal Household is updating its security, and we too are a target…
Truths like these by our Editor, Welshman Phi Parry, who was gripped by the rare neurological condition Hereditary Spastic Paraplegia (HSP), have been released in a major book ‘A GOOD STORY’. Order it now!
Tomorrow – regrettably during 43 years in journalism, (when he was trained to use clear and simple language, avoiding jargon), for Phil crime stories have often dominated, and now comes news which underlines this – that the problem of Organised Criminal Gangs (OCG) may be increasing.
Soon – stark warnings today from senior politicians, and intelligence officials about Russia’s hybrid ‘war’, also put centre stage how The Eye is seen as a threat.
