“Taken together these actions demonstrate a clear and persistent pattern of behavior that signals hostile intent from China,” Dowden told MPs.
“The cyber threat posed by China-affiliated actors is real and it is serious. But it is more than equalled by our determination and resolve to resist it,” he added.
Dowden’s statement marks a shift in the U.K.’s readiness to call out Beijing’s cyberattacks, and came amid similar action from the United States, which indicted seven Chinese individuals for alleged efforts to conduct malicious cyber operations against critical networks Monday.
Yet China hawks in the governing Conservative Party sounded less-than-impressed with the scale of Britain’s response.
Watchdog attack
The assessment from British security chiefs has two strands: the targeting of elections watchdog Electoral Commission, and the targeting of MPs critical of Beijing.
The Electoral Commission announced last year that it had been hit by a complex cyberattack in which its systems were accessed by then-unnamed “hostile actors.”