UK and US collaborating on cyber weapons, says Snowden

The US National Security Agency (NSA) and UK intelligence agency GCHQ are collaborating on cyber weapons, the latest documents released by whistleblower Edward Snowden reveal.

GCHQ blames China and Russia for most of cyber attacks against the UK and is working with the NSA to provide each country’s military forces with a cyber warfare capability, according to the Guardian.

This should come as no surprise following the publication of the latest annual report by the UK’s Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) in July that references a more proactive approach.

According to the report, the ISC believes that military cyber “could involve disrupting an adversary’s systems to prevent cyber attacks on the UK, or actions in cyberspace that support a conventional military operation”.

The report adds that while defending the UK against attacks in cyber space must be a priority, there are also “significant opportunities” which should be exploited in the interests of UK national security.

“These more proactive cyber capabilities must be closely linked to cyber ‘defence’: the lessons learned from one can feed into planning for the other,” the report said.

Snowden has also revealed that GCHQ received at least £100m from the US in the past three years, raising questions about US influence over UK intelligence gathering and what the US expected in return.

The funding included £4m to support GCHQ’s work for Nato forces in Afghanistan, and £17.2m for the agency’s Mastering the Internet project, which gathers and stores vast amounts of data for analysis.

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