The Government is currently investigating reports that Russian hackers have breached security measures to obtain numerous sensitive military files, which were subsequently made available on the dark web. The Ministry of Defence (MoD) has confirmed that it is actively looking into the situation and emphasized its firm and preemptive stance against cyber threats.
The stolen military documents purportedly contain detailed information about eight Royal Air Force (RAF) and Royal Navy bases, alongside the names and emails of MoD personnel, all of which have been leaked on the dark web. According to the Mail on Sunday, the cybercriminals managed to access these files by infiltrating a maintenance and construction contractor employed by the MoD.
The breach, which targeted a third-party contractor named the Dodd Group in September, included a warning from the hackers indicating impending consequences if the matter was not resolved promptly. The leaked documents, as revealed by the newspaper, encompass sensitive data related to RAF Lakenheath in Suffolk, a key base for the US Air Force’s F-35 stealth jets.
A spokesperson from the Ministry of Defence reiterated their commitment to tackling cyber threats that could jeopardize national security, stating that investigations are ongoing regarding the alleged publication of MOD-related information on the Dark Web. To uphold the confidentiality of operational data, no further comments have been provided on the specifics of the incident.
This incident of hacking comes in the wake of a series of notable data breaches within the MoD. Last year, a significant hack exposed the personal information of service personnel and veterans, including names, bank details, and select addresses stored in the payroll system, affecting potentially up to 272,000 individuals. Concurrently, the Government discreetly established the Afghanistan Response Route in response to the inadvertent disclosure of details of individuals in Afghanistan by a defense official in February 2022.