Get the free Morning Headlines email for news from our reporters across the worldSign up to our free Morning Headlines email<\/p>\n
Russian hackers have targeted ambulance services as part of a wider cyber campaign to cause \u201cmayhem\u201d on British streets.<\/p>\n
The attack by a hacking network was aimed at key suppliers to UK Ambulance Services over the last 12 months.<\/p>\n
It comes after MI5 director Ken McCallum warned the UK would see \u201ccontinued acts of aggression\u201d from Russia during the ongoing war in Ukraine.<\/p>\n
The hackers were able to target a key supplier to the Ambulance Radio Programme (ARP), which connects ambulances to the NHS and other emergency responders, the i newspaper reported.<\/p>\n
It is believed to form part of a new Russian cyberwarfare campaign dubbed by UK intelligence sources \u201cCyber Wagner\u201d, in reference to the hardline Russian mercenary group run by the late Yevgeny Prigozhin.<\/p>\n
It comes after MI5 warned Russia was on a \u2018sustained mission\u2019 to create \u2018mayhem\u2019 across Britain (Getty)This week, Mr McCallum said Moscow had\u00a0stepped up its attacks\u00a0on the UK despite the majority of diplomatic staff being expelled, with the Russian intelligence service, the GRU, being primarily responsible.<\/p>\n
He said the GRU was on a \u201csustained mission to generate mayhem on British and European streets\u201d with \u201carson, sabotage and more\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe UK\u2019s\u00a0leading role in supporting Ukraine\u00a0means we loom large in the\u00a0fevered imagination\u00a0of Vladimir Putin\u2019s regime, and we should expect to see\u00a0continued acts of aggression\u00a0here at home,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
In June, the former chief executive\u00a0of the National Cyber Security Centre said a Russian cybercrime group was behind a ransomware attack that affected major\u00a0London\u00a0hospitals.<\/p>\n
Ciaran Martin, a cybersecurity expert, said the attack on pathology services firm Synnovis\u00a0had led to a \u201csevere reduction in capacity\u201d and was a \u201cvery, very serious incident\u201d.<\/p>\n
Asked on BBC Radio 4\u2019s Today programme whether it is known who attacked Synnovis, Mr Martin said: \u201cYes. We believe it is a Russian group of cyber criminals who call themselves Qilin.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese criminal groups \u2013 there are quite a few of them \u2013 they operate freely from within Russia, they give themselves high-profile names, they\u2019ve got websites on the so-called dark web, and this particular group has about a two-year history of attacking various organisations across the world.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019ve done automotive companies, they\u2019ve attacked the Big Issue here in the UK, they\u2019ve attacked Australian courts. They\u2019re simply looking for money.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Health Department was approached for comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Get the free Morning Headlines email for news from our reporters across the worldSign up to our free Morning Headlines email Russian hackers have targeted ambulance services as part of a wider cyber campaign to cause \u201cmayhem\u201d on British streets. The attack by a hacking network was aimed at key suppliers to UK Ambulance Services […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3713,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[173],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3712","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\n