Russian cyber attackers “intruded” into the U.K.’s critical national infrastructure and represent an “immediate and urgent threat” to national security, according to intelligence agencies and experts quoted in a report released by British lawmakers Tuesday.
The report from the Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament, which was delayed for nine months and has been heavily redacted, says the U.K. is clearly a target for Russian disinformation and described Russian influence in Britain as “the new normal.”
The U.K. report also says British authorities were slow to react to the possibility of hacking and should have acted after the hacking of the Democratic National Committee in 2016.
The findings come more than a year after special counsel Robert Mueller found evidence of Russian attempts to interfere in the 2016 U.S. presidential election in a two-year investigation concluding in 2019. That report failed to find evidence that the Trump campaign “coordinated or conspired” with the Russian government.
Mueller’s investigation concluded that paid Russian activists spent years crafting convincing social media accounts and fake profiles that would engage with Trump campaign team members, while Russian intelligence officials’ attempted to systemically hack and dump documents stolen from Democratic officials.
The U.K. report said Russia carried out “pre-positioning activity” on multiple countries’ critical national infrastructure networks, including in the U.K., citing the country’s National Cyber Security Centre. Pre-positioning is where hackers explore and secure an “entry point” in a network that could be used to disruptive effect.
The report added that the G.R.U, Russia’s military intelligence agency, orchestrated phishing attacks against British government departments and that Russian actors on occasion employed “organised crime groups to supplement its cyber skills.”
The report also stated that “until recently, the government had badly underestimated the Russian threat and the response it required.”
In his daily media briefing just before the report’s release, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov denied any Russian interference in U.K. affairs.
“Russia has never interfered in electoral processes in any country in the world: not in the US, nor in Great Britain,” he said. “We do not do this ourselves, and we do not tolerate it when other countries try to interfere in our affairs.”