Minister cannot say if cyber attack on Jaguar Land Rover was state-sponsored

A business minister said he cannot confirm or deny whether the major cyber attack on Jaguar Land Rover was state-sponsored.

When pressed by the Conservatives to reveal who was behind the attack, Sir Chris Bryant said he will not “jump to conclusions”, with investigations ongoing.

Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) shut down its systems on August 31 after becoming aware of issues affecting its global operations.

The UK car manufacturer, owned by India’s Tata Motors, revealed its production and sales had been “severely disrupted”, with factory staff told to stay at home.

Factory workers are now being kept on standby until at least Thursday, with the firm updating them on a daily basis over whether to return to site.

The luxury carmaker has paused production at its factories in Halewood on Merseyside and Solihull in the West Midlands, as well as at its engine manufacturing site in Wolverhampton.

A group of young hackers, who targeted Marks and Spencer and other British brands, reportedly claimed they were behind the attack.

The BBC reported that the gang bragged about the hack on instant messaging platform Telegram and shared screenshots purporting to be from JLR’s internal IT system.

Speaking in the Commons on Tuesday, shadow business minister Dame Harriett Baldwin asked the minister to “rule out this being a state-sponsored attack”.

Sir Chris replied: “Can I say who’s responsible? No, I’m afraid I can’t.

“I note what is in the public domain, I have no idea whether that is accurate or not, and I don’t want to impede the investigation.

“(Dame Harriett) asked, is it state-sponsored? Again, I don’t want to jump to conclusions. I can’t, I’m afraid, I can neither confirm nor deny anything.

“And she asked, furthermore, whether … this case was linked with that of M&S. Again, I can’t answer that question as fulsomely as I would like to be able to, simply because I don’t know, and I don’t think anybody has come to any secure decisions on that.”

Sir Chris also told MPs the Government intends to bring its Cyber Security and Resilience Bill to the Commons “soon”.

The hacking gang made the claims on a Telegram channel which is called Scattered LapsusS Hunters, a combination of three English language-speaking hacking groups known as Scattered Spider, LapsusS and ShinyHunters.

Scattered Spider has been blamed for the attacks on British retailers earlier this year, after which M&S stopped online sales for around six weeks and warned that the incident could cost it around £300 million.

Four young people were arrested for their suspected involvement in the April attacks and have been bailed.

Labour’s Derek Twigg, the MP for Widnes and Halewood who tabled an urgent question on the issue, warned “there could be an ongoing and even more serious effect on our economy”.

In his response, Sir Chris said: “We simply cannot afford any degree of complacency in this, there are major criminals operating in this space, as well as some malicious state actors, and some 40% of companies in the UK last year reported that they had faced some kind of cyber attack.

“So it is a very important issue that we take seriously.”

JLR said earlier this week it was “working at pace” to restart its operations across production sites, though it said its retail partners “remain open”.

The company stressed there was “no evidence” that any customer data has been stolen in the attack.

Sir Chris pledged to provide “every possible support” to JLR and other companies in its supply chain.

Tory former defence secretary Sir Gavin Williamson, who is MP for Stone, Great Wyrley and Penkridge, said: “The attack on JLR is not the first of its kind, and it certainly won’t be the last of its kind, and you will see increasingly state actors using criminal gangs, whether originating from Russia, North Korea, Iran, using this as a way of getting hard cash into those countries.

“What more can the minister and the state do to really support our businesses with the robust type of defence that’s required because they are fighting states, and they need to have this state right behind them?”

Sir Chris said the Government “need to keep our eyes very wide open” to “the fact that there are undoubtedly foreign state actors who want to interfere in our businesses”.

The minister also warned firms and organisations over the threat posed by ransomware attacks where criminals snatch data and demand cash in exchange for its release.

Sir Chris said: “Paying the criminals doesn’t get you out of the hole. They’re not to be trusted, and people should be extremely cautious.

“We do not recommend in any circumstances, people paying ransomware. It doesn’t solve the problem, and what it actually does is it adds to the business model of these criminals, and it’s the criminals we want to see behind bars.”

Conservative Sir Edward Leigh, who as father of the House of Commons is the longest-serving male MP, said he was an “enthusiast” over the Government looking at digital ID cards to prevent illegal migrants working in the UK, but cautioned it “raises a whole new spectre” with the exposure of personal data.

Sir Chris said: “Data is a wonderful thing. It’s a gold mine in many ways, but it’s also a potential vulnerability.

“We need to make sure that if we’re going to take people into a digital future with digital ID cards, which I’m not saying that we are, but if we were to go down that route, or wherever we go, for instance, with a digital driving licence, which we’ll have soon, we just need to make sure that it is safe, secure, and people’s data isn’t in peril.”