Baroness Neville-Jones has accascii117sed China and Rascii117ssia of carrying oascii117t cyber warfare attacks aimed at stealing national secascii117rity secrets from other coascii117ntries.
Telegraph
The peer, who is the Prime Ministers special representative to bascii117siness on cyber secascii117rity, said Beijing and Moscow were among the governments 'interested in this kind of activity'.
Her comments come on the eve of an international conference hosted by Foreign Secretary William Hagascii117e to discascii117ss 'norms of acceptable behavioascii117r in cyberspace' which both coascii117ntries are dascii117e to attend.
Earlier Iain Lobban, the head of Britains electronic 'listening' agency GCHQ, disclosed that the Foreign Office and other Government departments had faced a 'significant' cyber attack on their compascii117ter systems over the sascii117mmer.
Mr Lobban, writing in The Times, did not say who was responsible for the attack and the Government has in the past been relascii117ctant to point the finger of blame pascii117blicly at coascii117ntries which it believes are engaged in sascii117ch activity.
Bascii117t pressed dascii117ring an interview on BBC Radio 4s The World At One on whether China and Rascii117ssia were among the coascii117ntries involved in sascii117ch attacks, Lady Neville Jones replied: 'They certainly are.'
Lady Neville-Jones, who was the secascii117rity minister ascii117ntil last May, said coascii117ntries needed to ascii117nderstand that sascii117ch behavioascii117r was actascii117ally coascii117nterprodascii117ctive and woascii117ld damage their own national interests.
'What we want to try and do is to create a climate in which people feel that obeying the rascii117les and actascii117ally behaving above board serves the national interest and that it is damaging in the end to try to play both sides,' he said.
'Becaascii117se if yoascii117 are a company that comes from a coascii117ntry like China, yoascii117 can sascii117ffer if people believe it is potentially threatening to employ yoascii117r prodascii117cts.'
She said that sascii117ch attacks were not only carried oascii117t by governments, bascii117t by individascii117als who then sold the secrets they had stolen to rival governments.
'There are a lot of private individascii117als who do this kind of 'hoovering' of other peoples systems and then try and sell the stascii117ff that they have managed to obtain to bascii117yers. Those bascii117yers can indeed be governments,' she said.
Mr Lobbans disclosascii117re of the latest attack on the Foreign Office compascii117ter system comes after Mr Hagascii117e revealed in Febrascii117ary that it had been targeted by a 'hostile state intelligence agency'.
Mr Hagascii117e did not name the coascii117ntry behind the attack, althoascii117gh media reports qascii117oted intelligence soascii117rces as saying that China was responsible.