Ursula von der Leyen has revealed her website has been “hacked by bots” – the day after she and French President Emmanuel Macron welcomed China’s President Xi Jinping to Paris.
There is no specific indication that China is responsible – but the superpower is very much in the spotlight after a large-scale cyber attack on the Ministry of Defence (MoD) earlier this week amid widespread speculation that Beijing is behind it.
Posting on X, formerly Twitter, on Tuesday, Ms von der Leyen, who is seeking another term as head of the European Union’s administrative arm, complained: “My campaign website http://ursula2024.eu was attacked by bots.”
However, she insisted: “Cyber attacks will not deter us.
“I stand for a strong Europe that can defend itself – no matter where.”
The European Parliament’s IT department warned in December about the risk of sophisticated state-sponsored attacks.
With 400 million EU citizens preparing to cast their votes in June’s European election, a poll indicated that 75 per cent of European respondents can identify who she is, putting her at an advantage in comparison with her lesser-known rivals.
The Government earlier this week acknowledged that state involvement cannot be ruled out in the MoD attacks, while carefully refusing to identify the culprit and saying it cannot release further details “for reasons of national security”.
Nevertheless, former leader of the Conservative Party Sir Iain Duncan Smith urged the Government to put China in the enhanced tier of the Foreign Influence Registration Scheme.
Speaking in the Commons on Tuesday, the Conservative MP (Chingford and Woodford Green) asked: “Why in heaven’s name don’t we take the decision to place this malign actor into that enhanced place and then make sure we deal with them accordingly?”
Alicia Kearns, chairwoman of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee, called on the Government to “get the Foreign Office changing our position” on China.
The Tory MP (Rutland and Melton) said: “In the last six weeks, the Chinese Communist Party has concluded to be responsible for hacking our Armed Forces, conducting a cyber attack on the Electoral Commission, cyber attacks on French and British MPs, a German aide was arrested on espionage charges, and two British men were charged with obtaining information useful to an enemy.
“Attacking our institutions and people who defend or represent our people is not the act of an ally or a friend, and the police – the British police – have explicitly deemed this the actions of an enemy.
“What is the minister doing to make sure we finally get a cross-government consensus and get the Foreign Office changing our position on this?”
Defence Secretary Grant Shapps acknowledged China’s proven cyber attacks, including on the Electoral Commission and on individual MPs, but he was “simply unable” to say who was behind the attack in this case yet.
He said: “I do want to stress that, although we can see a malign actor is involved, we are yet to make the full connection to a state.
“Although, as I pointed out, I can’t rule that out that that might be concluded, we have no evidence to conclude that way yet.”
