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Report ‘phone hack’ to police or I will do it for you, Labour chair tells Farage

Anna Turley gives Reform leader 24 hours to report Russian hacking claim in ‘public and national interest’

The Labour chair has given Nigel Farage 24 hours to report to security services the claim that his phone was hacked by Russia-linked actors or the party will do it for him.

In a letter to the Reform UK leader, Anna Turley said it was “in the public and national interest” to ensure that a suspected overseas hack of a senior politician’s phone by a hostile state was properly investigated.

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© Photograph: Ryan Jenkinson/Getty Images

© Photograph: Ryan Jenkinson/Getty Images

© Photograph: Ryan Jenkinson/Getty Images

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Nigel Farage’s Russian hack claim ‘without any merit’, former NCSC chief says

Ciaran Martin says Reform UK leader’s allegation over Guardian report on £5m gift ‘entirely unsubstantiated’

Nigel Farage’s claim that a Russian hack was behind a Guardian report on the £5m gift he received from a crypto billionaire has been described as “without any merit” by a former head of the National Cyber Security Centre.

Ciaran Martin, founding chief executive of the agency, which is part of GCHQ, said Farage’s allegation, if true, would have major implications for UK policy towards Russia but that the Reform UK leader had yet to provide “a shred of evidence”.

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© Photograph: Jack Taylor/Reuters

© Photograph: Jack Taylor/Reuters

© Photograph: Jack Taylor/Reuters

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‘All brakes are off’: Russia’s attempt to rein in illicit market for leaked data backfires

Russian state has tolerated parallel probiv market for its convenience but now Ukrainian spies are exploiting it

Russia is scrambling to rein in the country’s sprawling illicit market for leaked personal data, a shadowy ecosystem long exploited by investigative journalists, police and criminal groups.

For more than a decade, Russia’s so-called probiv market – a term derived from the verb “to pierce” or “to punch into a search bar” – has operated as a parallel information economy built on a network of corrupt officials, traffic police, bank employees and low-level security staff willing to sell access to restricted government or corporate databases.

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© Photograph: Alexander Zemlianichenko/AP

© Photograph: Alexander Zemlianichenko/AP

© Photograph: Alexander Zemlianichenko/AP

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UK ‘woefully’ unprepared for Chinese and Russian undersea cable sabotage, says report

CSRI finds China and Russia may be coordinating ‘grey zone’ tactics against vulnerable western infrastructure

China and Russia are stepping up sabotage operations targeting undersea cables and the UK is unprepared to meet the mounting threat, according to new analysis.

A report by the China Strategic Risks Institute (CSRI) analysed 12 incidents in which national authorities had investigated alleged undersea cable sabotage between January 2021 and April 2025. Of the 10 cases in which a suspect vessel was identified, eight were directly linked to China or Russia through flag-state registration or company ownership.

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© Photograph: John Leicester/AP

© Photograph: John Leicester/AP

© Photograph: John Leicester/AP

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Russian-led cybercrime network dismantled in global operation

Arrest warrants issued for ringleaders after investigation by police in Europe and North America

European and North American cybercrime investigators say they have dismantled the heart of a malware operation directed by Russian criminals after a global operation involving British, Canadian, Danish, Dutch, French, German and US police.

International arrest warrants have been issued for 20 suspects, most of them living in Russia, by European investigators while indictments were unsealed in the US against 16 individuals.

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© Photograph: Andrew Brookes/Getty Images/Image Source

© Photograph: Andrew Brookes/Getty Images/Image Source

© Photograph: Andrew Brookes/Getty Images/Image Source

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