British spying on Belgacom worse than imagined

Espionage by the British intelligence service GCHQ in Belgacom’s telecommunications network was more extensive than previously thought, according to documents revealed by De Standaard and the Dutch newspaper NRC Handelsblad.

In September last year, the German magazine Der Spiegel reported, based on documents leaked by Edward Snowden, that GCHQ operatives had hacked the computers of Belgacom employees, gaining access to Belgacom’s network, as well as to Belgacom International Carrier Services (BICS), the subsidiary that provides phone and internet traffic in Africa and the Middle East.

The information was provided by GCHQ to intelligence services in New Zealand, Canada, Australia and the US, which, with the UK, make up the group known as Five Eyes.

The new revelations show that the initial hacking – codenamed Operation Socialist – took place before June 2011 and was more extensive than Belgacom has so far admitted. Contrary to Belgacom’s previous claims, the hacking gave GCHQ access via BICS to virtually every mobile number in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. It wasn’t just private clients of Belgacom who were under surveillance, but also the telephone networks of Nato and the EU in Brussels, as well as international delegations and embassies.

Belgacom has declined to comment on the additional allegations while a legal procedure launched last September is on going. The federal prosecutor’s office, which is running the investigation, said it had taken note of the new information. The British government said GCHQ’s operations were “essential, legal and proportional”.

“This is the first time that there has been ‘smoking gun’ evidence of a cyber attack carried out by one country against the critical infrastructure of another,” Snowden told De Standaard this weekend. “This documented example of one EU country attacking another is breathtaking and shows the scale of state-sponsored hacking.”

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