Russia and China 'involved in cyber theft'

An adviser to the Prime Minister has accused China and Russia of orchestrating cyber attacks in an attempt to steal secrets from other countries.

Baroness Neville-Jones, David Cameron's special representative to business on cyber security, warned that attackers were targeting government departments as well as private companies. Speaking after Iain Lobban, the head of the UK's electronic listening agency, GCHQ, said that the Foreign Office and other government departments had faced a "significant" attack over the summer, Lady Neville-Jones, who was Security minister until last May, said the two regimes "certainly are" involved in attempts to obtain sensitive data. "You've got two different kinds of threat we face. One is trying to get hold of the secrets which relate to our national security and our foreign policy and all of the different things that the Government will try and protect," she told BBC's World at One.

Despite Mr Lobban's reluctance to point the finger at specific countries, Baroness Neville-Jones said Beijing and Moscow were "interested in this kind of activity".