Prime Minister Boris Johnson attended the funeral of Lord David Trimble on August 1st.
Reuters.
The vote by members of the UK Conservative Party on the next Prime Minister has had to be postponed. Because the spy agency Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) had warned that cyberhackers could change the ballot papers. The British newspaper Telegraph reported on Tuesday.
Postal voting is likely to be delayed
There is no specific threat from an enemy state, and the advice is more general in nature, affecting the electoral process and its vulnerabilities in general, the report said. The postal ballot papers now have to be mailed to some 160,000 party members, who have now been warned they will probably not receive their papers until August 11th.
Former Finance Minister Rishi Sunak and Foreign Secretary Liz Truss are competing to succeed Boris Johnson as Britain’s next prime minister. Truss leads in opinion polls among Conservative Party members. The decision on who will become prime minister should be made on September 5th.
Vulnerabilities in online elections
GCHQ gathers communications from around the world to identify and disrupt threats to the UK. A spokesman for the National Cyber Security Center (NCSC), which is part of GCHQ, said it advised the Conservative Party.
“Protecting the UK’s democratic processes and elections is a priority for the NCSC and we work closely with all political parties in Parliament, local authorities and MPs to provide advice and support on cybersecurity issues,” he said a spokesman for the NCSC told Reuters. “As is to be expected from the UK’s national cybersecurity agency, we have been advising the Conservative Party on security aspects of online elections,” the spokesman continued.