Defence Secretary 'watching closely' after hacks set off air alert warnings in Ukraine and Russia

The Defence Secretary has said the UK is watching developments very closely after Ukraine and Russia claim their air alert apps were hacked over the weekend.

The Ukrainian users were issued with a red-level warning across the country while the Russians issued similar warnings a few hours later.

Ukrainians were hit with warnings of radiation, chemical attacks, street fights and an incoming Russian Oreshnik missile.

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The country's air force said the system had been compromised and the country's officials blamed Russia for the breach.

But a few hours later a similar system used by Russians were hit by messages warning of nuclear drone strikes.

Defence Secretary Wes Streeting said: "We don't yet know who is behind this particular cyber-attack in Ukraine.

"We'll follow those developments closely.

"But what we're in no doubt about is that right across Europe we have seen these hybrid or state sponsored terrorist attacks driven by Moscow.

"So we'll watch this one very closely."

The Ukrainian government temporarily disabled the app after the compromise while the Kremlin said it was working to restore the Russian app to full functionality following the breach.

Prerana Joshi, a cyber security and resilience expert at the Royal United Services Institute (Rusi), said: "You need to be able to trust the applications that you're using, and any compromise of something that is official will naturally have secondary impacts and consequences.

"So I think from a cyber operations perspective, it's those second and third degrees that are useful to recognise.

"So what happens after the app is restored? How does the trust of that emergency alert app work across the population?

"It's one thing to be able to obviously put out communications against the specific event, but how do you instill that trust in the population?"

The breaches represent a sharp rise in the psychological and information warfare between Ukraine and Russia designed to target the morale of civilians in both countries.