Chinese state-affiliated hackers were responsible for two “malicious cyber campaigns” targeting the Electoral Commission and MPs, the deputy prime minister said.
Oliver Dowden told the House of Commons two individuals and a company linked to the Chinese state had been sanctioned over attacks on the Electoral Commission between 2021 and 2022.
The same company also carried out “reconnaissance” activity against UK parliamentary accounts in a separate campaign in 2021, Mr Dowden said.
It comes as Sir Iain Duncan Smith slammed the sanctions as underwhelming when compared with China’s alleged transgression of international law including slave labour and genocide.
He was one of several MPs, including Labour’s Dame Angela Eagle and Kevan Jones, as well as Conservative MP Tim Loughton, who were unimpressed by the government’s response to Chinese state-affiliated cyberattacks.
Mr Dowden said a number of the UK’s allies, including the United States, will be issuing similar statements to “expose this activity and to hold China to account for the ongoing patterns of hostile activity targeting our collective democracies”.
A spokesperson for the Chinese embassy in London said: “The so-called cyber attacks by China against the UK are completely fabricated and malicious slanders.”