Voting in the Conservative Party leadership race will be delayed by more than a week after GCHQ warned that cyberhackers could meddle with members’ ballots.
The National Cyber Security Centre – the listening post of GCHQ and one of the government’s three intelligence organisations alongside MI5 and MI6 – said there are vulnerabilities in the voting system, The Telegraph reported.
Its general warning did not make specific mention of hostile countries such as China, Iran or Russia – the latter of which the US accused of interfering in its 2020 presidential contest.
But the change of plan means postal ballots will arrive at the addresses of about 160,000 Tory members as late as 11 August, after they were previously meant to be sent out from Monday.
This means that members will have less than a month to return their votes by Friday, 2 September, for counting before Boris Johnson’s successor – foreign secretary Liz Truss or former chancellor Rishi Sunak – will be announced on Monday 5 September.
