Shadowy alliance of pro-Russia and Palestine 'hacktivists' step up attacks on UK

Pro-Russian and pro-Palestinian hackers have stepped up attacks on the UK, experts have warned. A shadowy alliance of hackers is attacking organisations, agencies, even the , security services and infrastructure installations. They have joined forces and singled out the UK because of its support and association with .

Called the Holy League, they include about 90 "hacktivist" groups and came together to wage cyberwar against Ukraine and Israel and their allies. The coalition includes groups believed to be working alongside Russia's military intelligence branch, the GRU, who launched the 2018 Novichok nerve agent attack on Sergei Skripal in Salisbury. This latest group of hackers are thought to have been trained by Tehran’s elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps - the IRGC.

Analysts believe Britain's major role in backing of Ukraine has made it a far greater target. The listening station GCHQ recently warned of a growing threat from state-aligned hacktivists. They last month claimed to have carried out simultaneous attacks on the websites of the British Army, Royal Navy and Office for Nuclear Security.

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And they followed up the assault with a warning on the Telegram app saying: "This is just a warning and worse is yet to come.”

A former British intelligence officer told the Daily : “Anything can do to undermine Uk security is being done and it is below the threshold for overt war but extremely costly.

“Whether it is in the form of stealing research development or disrupting our systems and the way we work, they consider it a result if it cause us problems. At the more sinister end are interferences with the and critical infrastructure, trying to penetrate our emergency services or nuclear safety and other power outlets. It is a huge problem for the UK.”

The MI6 website was also targeted by a Holy League member called Mr Hamza, who is a pro-Palestinian hacker thought to be based in Morocco. The groups will typically provide evidence for their claims in the form of "check host" links that show how long a website was not working.

Sometimes websites can be crippled for just hours but they have also been hit for days, causing widespread disruption. Last month X was hit by a major strike which caused an outage that lasted more than six hours. Elon Musk, chairman of X, blamed Ukrainian hackers but a pro-Palestinian group called Dark Storm Team later took responsibility.

The Holy League was founded at the end of last summer by a cybercriminal called Abu Omar, also leader of member group Cyber Islamic Resistance. He told Russian state media he worked with partners from Russia, , Morocco, Egypt and Algeria and said members of Cyber Islamic Resistance were trained by the Badr Organisation, an IRGC militia in .

Asked what victory looked like, he said: "I want the conflicts to end with the destruction of the 'Evil Empire', including Ukraine, Israel and Nato." For months now, Britain's cybersecurity chiefs have warned of the growing threat posed by hackers.

At the end of last year, the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), part of GCHQ, said there was "a widening gap" between increasingly complex threats and the UK's capability to defend criti- cal national infrastructure. In its annual review, the NCSC said Russia and Iran were looking to encourage "a new wave of state-aligned hacktivism.”

It added:: "The NCSC has seen a stark increase in the focus on critical national infrastructure systems, as hacktivist groups strike to compromise these systems for political effect and propaganda victories."