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Gavin Williamson: Britain will expose Russian cyber aggression

Gavin Williamson says the UK will not be 'backward leaning' in responding to Russian cyber aggression after a series of Kremlin-led attacks were revealed.

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Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson

Speaking at a Nato summit in Brussels, the Defence Secretary warned that Moscow was targeting organisations with no military value, and insisted Britain would expose any such attacks.

It comes after senior British diplomat Peter Wilson claimed Russia attempted to hack the UK's Foreign Office in March, and the Russian intelligence service, the GRU, was accused of launching a cyber attack on the global chemical weapons watchdog which is investigating the Salisbury nerve agent poisoning.

Officials in the Netherlands, where the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons is based, said four Russians had been expelled in the wake of the alleged cyber strike.

British intelligence helped thwart the operation, which was launched in April, a month after the Salisbury Novichok attack that killed 44-year-old Dawn Sturgess and put three others in hospital, including former spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia.

South Staffordshire MP Mr Williamson said: "And what we are seeing is that Russia is quite willing to use such weapons such as cyber attacks against these organisations, and here at Nato we stand shoulder to shoulder with our allies in unity against such actions.

"What we have made clear is that we are not going to be backward leaning. We are going to actually make it clear where Russia acts that we are going to be exposing that action.

"And we believe that by doing so this will act as a disincentive for acting in such a way in the future."

Mr Wilson, the UK ambassador in The Hague, said Russian intelligence officers tried to compromise Foreign Office systems with an attack in March.

The UK Government has accused the GRU of a wave of other cyber attacks across the globe, with Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt warning that it was waging a campaign of 'indiscriminate and reckless' cyber strikes targeting political institutions, businesses, media and sport.

The National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) said that a number of hackers known to have launched attacks have now been linked to the GRU.

The revelations will further strain relations with Russia, after Britain blamed Moscow for the nerve agent attack in Salisbury last March.

The NCSC associated four new attacks with the GRU, on top of previous strikes believed to have been conducted by Russian intelligence.

Among targets of the GRU attacks were the World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada), transport systems in Ukraine and democratic elections, such as the 2016 US presidential race, according to the NCSC.

Mr Hunt said: "These cyber attacks serve no legitimate national security interest.

"Our message is clear: together with our allies, we will expose and respond to the GRU's attempts to undermine international stability."