UK election interference threat grows after Trump’s cyber defence cuts ...Middle East

Britain’s ability to stop hostile nations and groups interfering with elections is under threat following Trump’s cuts to cyber security, experts have warned.

This week The i Paper revealed the US President imposed funding cuts on US Cyber Command (USCC) – a crown jewel in the Pentagon’s ability to counter Russian cyber threats. The move is only one in a series of cuts by the Trump administration which have diluted America’s cyber defences.

In recent weeks, the White House has culled a complex early-warning system for cyberattacks and swept away nearly all of the government’s devices for protecting against election interference.

There has been growing alarm at how foreign powers or their criminal proxies have been targeting elections in Britain as well as politicians across all parties in order to interfere with democratic processes.

Cybersecurity experts, MPs and intelligence sources from the UK and US have warned of the “chilling effect” the Trump cuts will have on the UK, a common partner of the US on cyber resilience.

They warn that significant impact could be placed on the UK’s own ability to deter hostile state cyber attacks including election interference.

Jamie MacColl, senior fellow at the Royal United Services Institute who is a specialist in cybercrime, said that a number of UK cyber operations are “likely under threat” due to Trump’s cuts, most notably our ability to protect elections from foreign interference.

He said: “The UK’s partnership with the US goes beyond defensive and offensive cyber operations and intelligence-sharing. There are a number of key UK cyber policy and diplomatic initiatives which are likely under threat because of US cuts and policy shifts.

“These includes countering-election interference, policy work, and diplomatic initiatives to counter ransomware”

Matt Weston, the Labour Chair of parliament’s Joint Committee on National Security Strategy said MPs are “following developments in the US very closely” and urged the UK to invest in domestic agency’s capabilities.

He said: “Russia’s aggression poses a serious threat to our security, and the UK has worked extensively with our allies to respond. We are therefore following developments in the US very closely.

“We need to be prepared for all eventualities. Investing in the UK’s resilience to reduce our vulnerabilities to cyber attacks will help protect our infrastructure, people and elections from hostile activity.”

UK and US work to prevent election interference 

From the Brexit referendum to national polls, election interference by hostile groups have become a growing matter of concern for Western intelligence agencies.

The UK has regularly fought alongside US counterparts to detect, defend and counter election interference by criminal cyber groups, often backed by hostile nation states.

In 2023, the UK worked in tandem with a US govt agency that is part of Dept of Homeland Security called the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (Cisa) to uncover sustained attempts to interfere in UK politics and democratic processes by Russian state cyber actors.

The operation exposed how a Russian cyber crime group, Star Blizzard, had been “almost certainly” a subordinate of Russian intelligence.

The group were found to be targeting UK parliamentarians with malicious cyber attacks, compromising leaked UK-US trade documents, and selectively leaking information pilfered from hacked journalists, think tanks and universities to undermine trust in politics in the UK and likeminded states.

At the time Paul Chichester, Director of Operations at the UK’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), said: “Defending our democratic processes is an absolute priority for the NCSC and we condemn any attempt which seeks to interfere or undermine our values.

“Russia’s use of cyber operations to further its attempts at political interference is wholly unacceptable and we are resolute in calling out this pattern of activity with our partners.”

The case represents an example of the threat faced by western countries, and the need for rigid cyber security against them. But Cisa as been the main focus of Trump’s apparent resentment.

The agency claimed that the 2020 election was one of the best run in history, going against the US President’s claims that he had been cheated of victory.

Since the start of his second term, Trump has cut more than $10 million in funding to two Cisa cybersecurity programs dedicated to election security and protecting government assets.

On Wednesday, Trump signed an executive order demanding a Department of Justice probe against the former director of the agency, Chris Krebs, because of his coordinated efforts to secure the 2020 presidential election and counter false claims of voter fraud.

Last month, the agency faced further cuts when it was forced to cancel contracts with more than a hundred cybersecurity experts, and there are fears that almost half of the agency’s 3,400 workforce could be at risk of termination.

While there is optimism that agencies can ride out the turbulent administration of Trump, there are fears that the damage being inflicted on Cisa and USCC will severely impact allied approached to hostile cyber groups.

The joint fight against Russian criminal gangs

Its not just election interference that British intelligence has partnered with US cyber agencies on. The Atlantic coalition has increasingly disrupted and targeted espionage and sabotage campaigns launched by state-backed cyber criminals.

One of the best examples of cooperation emerged only six months ago in September when Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) – the UK’s signals intelligence agency – worked with both US Cyber Command and CISA to expose a unit of Russia’s military intelligence service.

The investigation revealed a Russian state campaign of malicious cyber activity targeting government and critical infrastructure organisations around the world.

The joint operation was the first to publicly expose a unit within Russia’s main intelligence agency, GRU, of a malicious cyber campaign against Ukrainian organisations. The operation found the GRU’s Unit 29155 caused reputational harm by the theft and leaking of sensitive information, defaced victim websites and undertaken systematic sabotage caused by the destruction of data.

The activity highlighted the coordinated approach between “junior active-duty GRU officers” and non-GRU cyber criminals, according to the NCSC.

Behind the scenes, security officials are still grappling to understand the fallout from Trump’s slimming down of US cyber capabilities. Over the past weeks, GCHQ has repeatedly reiterated the strength of cooperation with US agencies.

A UK security source said the intelligence relationship between the two countries is “based on mutual trust”, and so officials will be working hard to maintain operational standards behind the scenes.

However, a second intelligence source said the US cuts would “significantly disrupt” a longstanding “coalition” of detecting and countering threats from nation such as Russia, China and Iran.

“We have spent years building a coalition to call out cyber threats from Russia, China and Iran,” they said. “The UK will now need to operate closer with Europe as the US looks to dilute its cyber operations.”

Dr Joe Devanny from the King’s College Department of War Studies said allies will inevitably be unsettled while they understand the scale of cuts to US capabilities.

He said: “It isn’t clear yet what the scale of cyber-related budget cuts and workforce reductions will be across the federal government. Without these crucial details, we can’t say for sure how much “normal business” will be affected by these cuts, including how collaboration with allies might be affected.

“The bigger the cuts, the greater the impact. And of course, there is the separate question of whether the new Trump team wants to approach cyber strategy differently in other ways.

“This is inevitably going to unsettle allies, at least until it is clear what the “new normal” is going to look like.”

The US National Security Agency, Cisa and the NCSC were asked to comment.

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