Liam Fox’s Trade Papers Stolen and Leaked
London: Documents on UK-US trade talks, leaked ahead of the 2019 general election were stolen from an email account belonging to Conservative MP Liam Fox, it has emerged.
The papers were published online and used by Labour in the 2019 campaign to claim the NHS would be put at risk.
The UK government has said Russians almost certainly sought to interfere in the election through the documents.
A criminal inquiry into the leaking of the documents is underway.
A spokesman for the National Crime Agency confirmed it was leading the investigation, but added he could not comment further.
Mr Fox was an international trade secretary from July 2016 to July 2019.
It is not clear when his account was accessed and the information stolen.
Reuters, which first reported the story, said hackers accessed Mr Fox's account multiple times between 12 July and 21 October last year.
A government spokesperson said: "There is an ongoing criminal investigation into how the documents were acquired, and it would be inappropriate to comment further at this point.
"But as you would expect, the government has very robust systems in place to protect the IT systems of officials and staff."
Last month, the government said it believed Russian actors were responsible for spreading the trade document on social media. But there was still the question of how it was first obtained.
The exact identity of the Russian group behind the attack remains unknown.
Whether it was the same group which then spread the document is unclear and that group (codenamed Secondary Infektion) is not thought to be the same as the one behind events in the US election, which had a larger impact.
Hackers from many countries have targeted politicians in recent years. But coming soon after the Russia report, this will serve as a reminder that groups based in Russia are often the most adept at not just stealing, but also using, the information.
