‘Heart of Downing Street’ breached? Reports expose Chinese hackers targeted top British officials’ phones

Chinese hackers breached the mobile phones of senior officials at “the heart of Downing Street” for several years as part of a global cyber-espionage campaign that targeted telecommunication networks, reports suggested. The state-sponsored hackers are known to have gained access to phones of some of the closest aides of the former prime ministers, including Boris Johnson, Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak, between 2021 and 2024. The report comes at a time when British Prime Minister Keir Starmer is visiting China this week to secure trade and investment ties with Beijing.

The Telegraph reported that while it is unclear whether the compromised mobile phones included those of the prime ministers themselves, one source with knowledge of the breach said it went “right into the heart of Downing Street”.

According to intelligence sources, the Chinese espionage operation, known as Salt Typhoon, was ongoing and raises the possibility that Starmer and his close aides may also have been exposed to the breach. Earlier in November, the MI5 issued an “espionage alert” to Parliament due to the threat of spying from China.

The Telegraph reported that the hackers also had the ability to “record phone calls at will”, according to Anne Neuberger, who was a deputy US national security adviser between January 2021 and January 2025.

“Chinese gained access to networks and essentially had broad and full access,” Neuberger said, adding that this gave them the capability to “geolocate millions of individuals, to record phone calls at will.”

China’s Foreign Ministry had earlier rejected the claims, calling them “baseless” and “lacking evidence”.

In 2024, US officials first alerted their allies that hacking groups had gained access to telecom companies across the world, Associated Press reported. The campaign reportedly targeted several countries, including the US, and other member nations of the Five Eyes intelligence alliance – Australia, Canada and New Zealand.

“The malicious activity outlined in the advisory partially overlaps with cybersecurity industry reporting on Chinese state-sponsored threat actors referred to by names such as Salt Typhoon,” an NSA release said.

Yuval Wollman, former Israeli intelligence chief, told The Telegraph that Salt Typhoon was “one of the most prominent names” in the cyber-espionage world.

“While much of the public reporting has focused on US targets, Salt Typhoon’s operations have extended into Europe, the Middle East and Africa, where it has targeted telecoms firms, government entities and technology companies,” Wollman of cybersecurity platform CyberProof added.