British Prime Minister’s Phone Hacked

Russia hacked recent British Prime Minister Liz Truss's phone while she was serving as Foreign Secretary and it was found to be so compromised that it was locked away in a 'secure location' as experts fear top secret negotiations and private messages may have been leaked. 

Truss was forced to change her mobile number shortly before becoming Prime Minister.

The hack was discovered during the summer Conservative party leadership campaign, but the news was suppressed until now on the orders of Boris Johnson, who was Prime Minister at the time and the most senior British civil servant, Cabinet Secretary, Simon Case, for security reasons. 

The Mail on Sunday newspaper described this as amounting to a "news blackout" reporting that agents suspected of working for Russia had been responsible for the alleged hacking, citing unnamed sources.

The spies are believed to have gained access to top-secret exchanges with key international partners as well as private conversations with her leading political allies and experts believe the intercepted messages included conversations with international foreign ministers about the conflict in Ukraine, potentially related to arms shipments.

British government sources insist that it now has "robust" cyber-threat protection in place and newly appointed Levelling Up Secretary, Michael Gove, commented that while he did not know the full details "of what security breach, if any, took place" but said the government took these issues "incredibly seriously". 

These events are just the most recent to emerge over the covert hacking of mobile phones used by political leaders and senior government figures across the European Union and further afield. Canadian experts raised the threat of mobile spyware developed by the NSO Group being used the target the British Prime Minister as long as two years ago.

It is not clear how any hack happened, but opposition parties have seized on the issue. "There are immensely important national security issues raised by an attack like this by a hostile state which will have been taken extremely seriously by our intelligence and security agencies," said Labour party shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper. "There are also serious security questions around why and how this information has been leaked or released right now which must also be urgently investigated."

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