Beautiful Virgin Islands

Monday, Oct 06, 2025

Liz Truss's personal phone was hacked by Russian agents. Top-secret negotiations between Truss and international allies downloaded

Liz Truss's personal phone was hacked by Russian agents. Top-secret negotiations between Truss and international allies downloaded

LIZ Truss’s personal phone was hacked by agents suspected of working for Russian President Vladimir Putin. They gained access to top-secret details of negotiations with key international allies – as well as private messages she exchanged with her close friend Kwasi Kwarteng.
The hack was discovered during the summer Tory leadership campaign, when Ms Truss was Foreign Secretary, but the details were suppressed by the then Prime Minister Boris Johnson and the Cabinet Secretary Simon Case.

One source said the phone was so heavily compromised that it has now been placed in a locked safe inside a secure government location.

It is understood that the messages that fell into foreign hands included criticisms of Mr Johnson made by Ms Truss and Mr Kwarteng, leading to a potential risk of blackmail. Sources said that up to a year's worth of messages were downloaded.

They are also believed to have included highly sensitive discussions with senior international foreign ministers about the war in Ukraine, including detailed discussions about arms shipments.

The astonishing incident, disclosed by security sources, solves the mystery of why Ms Truss was forced to change the mobile number she had used for more than a decade shortly before becoming Prime Minister – causing confusion and anxiety among Cabinet Ministers and advisers who were suddenly unable to contact her.

In a statement released to the MoS on Saturday afternoon, a UK Government spokesperson said: ‘We do not comment on individuals’ security arrangements. The Government has robust systems in place to protect against cyber threats. That includes regular security briefings for Ministers, and advice on protecting their personal data and mitigating cyber threats.’

But a source with knowledge of the incident said: ‘This caused absolute pandemonium. Boris was told immediately, and it was agreed with the Cabinet Secretary that there should be a total news blackout. It is not a great look for the intelligence services if the Foreign Secretary’s phone can be so easily plundered for embarrassing personal messages by agents presumed to be working for Putin’s Russia.’

Allies of Ms Truss said that she was worried that if news of the hack leaked it could derail her chance of claiming the Premiership, and ‘had trouble sleeping’ until Mr Case imposed a news blackout.

The security services have grown increasingly concerned about the threat posed by hackers working for hostile countries such as Russia and China, with mobile phones regarded as the ‘soft underbelly’ of the modern state.

An Israeli system called Pegasus, which gains access to phones without the owner knowing, was allegedly used by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to hack Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, while Dubai’s ruler Sheik Mohammed used it on his ex-wife Princess Haya and five associates.

The spy software can be launched on phones with a text message, which does not even have to be opened, just received. It then runs in the background without the owner’s knowledge, gaining access to everything on the device and tracking the individual’s movements. The US used similar technology to spy on former German chancellor Angela Merkel’s phone over a number of years.

A security source said: ‘It takes a while to track who is behind attacks like these, whether they are individual cyber-criminals or state actors, but Russia tends to be at the top of the list.’

Ms Truss took an uncompromising approach to Putin during her time as Foreign Secretary and Prime Minister, telling the UN general assembly in September that Putin’s threats to use nuclear weapons as part of his war in Ukraine were ‘sabre-rattling’. The UK has been one of the strongest supporters of Ukraine in the international community.

During the final days of her premiership, Ms Truss became fixated by the weather forecast – because of increasingly alarming security warnings about the situation in Ukraine.

Ms Truss had become alarmed by reports from the intelligence services that Russia could be preparing to detonate a nuclear device in Ukraine or over the Black Sea as part of a show of strength, and was concerned about the impact of a radioactive cloud heading for the UK.

‘Liz was obsessed with the prevailing wind,’ said a source.

Officials said that Putin could ‘go nuclear’ after Ukrainian forces blew up the road bridge connecting Russia and Crimea across the Kerch Strait; Putin had warned that any such attack would ‘cross a red line’ and prompt ‘judgment day’.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was told by his country’s intelligence agencies that there was a ‘very high’ risk that Russia might use so-called tactical nuclear weapons, which are designed to be used on the battlefield – but the effects would spread around the globe in the manner of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in the same country in 1986.

Last week President Putin said that Ms Truss must have been ‘a bit out of it’ when she made her remarks, and claimed that he had ‘never said anything proactively about possible use of nuclear weapons by Russia’.

Ms Truss’s mobile phone number – the one that can now be revealed to have been hacked – was for sale on the internet, along with those of 25 Cabinet Ministers. They could be accessed on a shady US website charging just £6.49 for access to the information, which cyber experts warned could be used by foreign countries to spy on senior Government figures.

Numbers for former Chancellor Kwarteng, Defence Secretary Ben Wallace, Foreign Secretary James Cleverly and Home Secretary Suella Braverman were among those listed on the site, along with that of Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer.

Former Senior Military Intelligence Officer Philip Ingram said: ‘The phone will be in secure government location which means a secure cage where the device can be forensically examined by experts but without the hackers knowing. They will be looking to analyse what information has been lost, what is at risk and trying to work out how the phone was hacked and possibly work out by whom. It does not surprise me that Liz Truss has had her phone hacked given that the number is available to download online. Other ministers whose phone numbers have been leaked online should be taking action.

‘Ministers and all Parliamentarians need to wake up to the fact that their personal communication devices are vulnerable to being hacked. The information they possess is gold dust to hostile intelligence services. All politicians and in fact all people in society dealing with sensitive information must assume that their communications are compromised and work back from that. You are never going to stop it so you must take it seriously.’
Newsletter

Related Articles

Beautiful Virgin Islands
0:00
0:00
Close
Trump Stands Firm in Shutdown Showdown and Declares War on Drug Cartels — Turning Crisis into Opportunity
Surge of U.S. Billionaires Transforms London’s Peninsula Apartments into Ultra-Luxury Stronghold
Pro Europe and Anti-War Babiš Poised to Return to Power After Czech Parliamentary Vote
Jeff Bezos Calls AI Surge a ‘Good’ Bubble, Urges Focus on Lasting Innovation
Japan’s Ruling Party Chooses Sanae Takaichi, Clearing Path to First Female Prime Minister
Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs Sentenced to Fifty Months in Prison Following Prostitution Conviction
Taylor Swift’s ‘Showgirl’ Launch Extends Billion-Dollar Empire
Trump Administration Launches “TrumpRx” Plan to Enable Direct Drug Sales at Deep Discounts
Trump Announces Intention to Impose 100 Percent Tariff on Foreign-Made Films
Altman Says GPT-5 Already Outpaces Him, Warns AI Could Automate 40% of Work
Singapore and Hong Kong Vie to Dominate Asia’s Rising Gold Trade
Trump Organization Teams with Saudi Developer on $1 Billion Trump Plaza in Jeddah
Manhattan Sees Surge in Office-to-Housing Conversions, Highest Since 2008
Switzerland and U.S. Issue Joint Assurance Against Currency Manipulation
Electronic Arts to Be Taken Private in Historic $55 Billion Buyout
Thomas Jacob Sanford Named as Suspect in Deadly Michigan Church Shooting and Arson
Russian Research Vessel 'Yantar' Tracked Mapping Europe’s Subsea Cables, Raising Security Alarms
New York Man Arrested After On-Air Confession to 2017 Parents’ Murders
U.S. Defense Chief Orders Sudden Summit of Hundreds of Generals and Admirals
Global Cruise Industry Posts Dramatic Comeback with 34.6 Million Passengers in 2024
Trump Claims FBI Planted 274 Agents at Capitol Riot, Citing Unverified Reports
India: Internet Suspended in Bareilly Amid Communal Clashes Between Muslims and Hindus
Supreme Court Extends Freeze on Nearly $5 Billion in U.S. Foreign Aid at Trump’s Request
Archaeologists Recover Statues and Temples from 2,000-Year-Old Sunken City off Alexandria
China Deploys 2,000 Workers to Spain to Build Major EV Battery Factory, Raising European Dependence
Speed Takes Over: How Drive-Through Coffee Chains Are Rewriting U.S. Coffee Culture
U.S. Demands Brussels Scrutinize Digital Rules to Prevent Bias Against American Tech
Ringo Starr Champions Enduring Beatles Legacy While Debuting Las Vegas Art Show
Private Equity’s Fundraising Surge Triggers Concern of European Market Shake-Out
Colombian President Petro Vows to Mobilize Volunteers for Gaza and Joins List of Fighters
FBI Removes Agents Who Kneeled at 2020 Protest, Citing Breach of Professional Conduct
Trump Alleges ‘Triple Sabotage’ at United Nations After Escalator and Teleprompter Failures
Shock in France: 5 Years in Prison for Former President Nicolas Sarkozy
Tokyo’s Jimbōchō Named World’s Coolest Neighbourhood for 2025
European Officials Fear Trump May Shift Blame for Ukraine War onto EU
BNP Paribas Abandons Ban on 'Controversial Weapons' Financing Amid Europe’s Defence Push
Typhoon Ragasa Leaves Trail of Destruction Across East Asia Before Making Landfall in China
The Personality Rights Challenge in India’s AI Era
Big Banks Rebuild in Hong Kong as Deal Volume Surges
Italy Considers Freezing Retirement Age at 67 to Avert Scheduled Hike
Italian City to Impose Tax on Visiting Dogs Starting in 2026
Arnault Denounces Proposed Wealth Tax as Threat to French Economy
Study Finds No Safe Level of Alcohol for Dementia Risk
Denmark Investigates Drone Incursion, Does Not Rule Out Russian Involvement
Lilly CEO Warns UK Is ‘Worst Country in Europe’ for Drug Prices, Pulls Back Investment
Nigel Farage Emerges as Central Force in British Politics with Reform UK Surge
Disney Reinstates ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live!’ after Six-Day Suspension over Charlie Kirk Comments
U.S. Prosecutors Move to Break Up Google’s Advertising Monopoly
Nvidia Pledges Up to $100 Billion Investment in OpenAI to Power Massive AI Data Center Build-Out
U.S. Signals ‘Large and Forceful’ Support for Argentina Amid Market Turmoil
×