In a shocking development that has sent ripples through the teapots of the nation, GCHQ has confirmed that Russia is, and I quote, ‘relentlessly targeting’ our infrastructure and democracy. Yes, you heard that right. The same Russia that brought us the delightful spectacle of a shirtless Vladimir Putin riding a horse is now after our ability to boil water and vote reliably.
One can only imagine the meeting at Cheltenham: a room full of people who’ve swallowed too many thesauruses, deciding that ‘relentlessly targeting’ is the perfect phrase to make us all soil our union jack boxers. Because if there’s one thing the British public loves, it’s being told that foreign hackers are lurking in the digital undergrowth, ready to rewire our traffic lights or, heaven forbid, meddle with the plot of the next season of ‘The Crown’.
Now, I don’t wish to downplay the seriousness of cyber-espionage. But let’s be honest: when the GCHQ spooks say ‘infrastructure’, they might be referring to the fact that someone in St Petersburg has been trying to hack into the algorithm that distributes my favourite gin to the local off-licence. That, my friends, is a crime against humanity.
As for democracy, I’m fairly certain it’s been on life support since the last general election. But still, it’s the principle of the thing. Apparently, Russian bots are now more active than a beagle on a squirrel hunt, spreading disinformation about everything from the price of cheese to the true identity of Banksy.
I can picture the Kremlin’s ‘troll farm’ now: a disused factory outside Moscow, filled with miserable-looking twentysomethings in hoodies, typing furiously about how the Wetherspoon’s breakfast is an affront to civilisation. Meanwhile, our own intelligence agencies, who spend millions on satellites and code-breaking, have apparently only just noticed that the Wi-Fi in the House of Commons is being used to watch cat videos from Vladivostok.
The report emphasises that these attacks are ‘relentless’, which is a word that should be reserved for things like the rain at Glastonbury or the queue for the loo at a football match. But now it’s being applied to Russian cyber-operations, which presumably means they’re working around the clock, because nothing says ‘dedicated’ like a hacker who doesn’t take a lunch break.
In response, the government has formed a ‘Cyber Resilience Taskforce’, which will no doubt consist of nine civil servants meeting in a Portakabin in Milton Keynes to discuss the best way to protect our electoral roll from being turned into a giant bingo game. Meanwhile, I’ll be doing my bit: I’ve disconnected my toaster from the Internet and taken to storing my democracy in a metal box under the bed, wrapped in a tea towel.
So, Russia, if you’re reading this (and you probably are, using the microphone on my laptop to listen to me type), I have a message for you: you can have our infrastructure, you can even have our democracy, but if you touch our gin, there will be hell to pay. And that’s not a threat; it’s a promise.
