The Cabinet Office has rejected Dominic Cummings' claim that China hacked into high-level systems used to transmit sensitive government information.
IN interview with the Times newspaperCummings said China had received a “massive amount” of “highly sensitive” information from the UK intelligence services and parts of Whitehall.
He told the newspaper the breach was covered up after he was informed of the compromised data in 2020 while he was a senior aide to then-Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
In response, a Cabinet Office spokesman said: “It is not true to suggest that the systems we use to communicate the government's most sensitive information have been compromised.”
Cummings said China hacked high-level systems used to transmit so-called Strap material, a government classification of highly sensitive intelligence.
In an interview, he said the compromised information included: “Intelligence service materials. Materials of the National Security Secretariat under the Cabinet of Ministers.
“Things the government should keep secret. If they are not secret, then this has very, very serious consequences.”
He told the newspaper: “The cabinet secretary said, 'We have some explaining to do; there was a serious problem,” and told what was going on.
“And it was so strange that not only Boris, but also several people in the room looked around like this: “Am I misunderstanding something, what is he saying?”
He added: “What I'm saying is that some of Strap's material has been compromised and huge amounts of data classified as highly sensitive and extremely dangerous for any foreign entity to control has been compromised.”
Cummings also said the violation was covered up.
“If MPs want to finally investigate this, I would be happy to talk about it,” he said.
A former national security official told the BBC he was “baffled” by Cummings' claims.
Professor Ciaran Martin became the first chief executive of the UK National Cyber Security Center in 2016 and stepped down in August 2020.
Speaking on Radio 4's The World Tonight, Professor Martin questioned Cummings' claim that the so-called Strap system had been hacked.
“To the best of my knowledge, this is categorically false,” he said. “The National Cyber Security Center would have to lead this issue, and there was no such investigation.”
Professor Martin added: “China poses a persistent and significant cybersecurity threat… but the systems are very different.
“They are created, controlled, secured and managed completely differently than conventional Internet systems.
“It does not follow from this that… they [China] could somehow infiltrate these completely custom systems, and there was no evidence in 2020 that they had done so.”
