Britain’s nuclear submarine software contract handed to Belarusian engineers

>Britain’s nuclear submarine engineers use software that was designed in Russia and Belarus, in contravention of Ministry of Defence rules, The Telegraph can reveal.

>The software should have been created by UK-based staff with security clearance, but its design was partially outsourced to developers in Siberia and Minsk, the capital of Belarus.

>There are fears that the code built by the Russian and Belarussian developers could be exploited to reveal the location of Britain’s submarines.

>The Telegraph understands that the MoD considered the security breach a serious threat to UK defence and launched an investigation.

>The inquiry discovered that the firm that outsourced the work – on a staff intranet for nuclear submarine engineers – to Russia and Belarus initially kept it secret and discussed whether it could disguise where the workers were based by giving them fake names of dead British people.

>As well as the UK’s submarine fleet, there are fears that further defence capabilities could have been compromised because it has emerged that a previous project was also outsourced to developers in Minsk.

>Rolls-Royce Submarines, which designs and runs the UK’s nuclear submarine fleet on behalf of the Royal Navy, wanted to upgrade its staff intranet and had subcontracted the work to WM Reply, a digital consultancy firm.

>WM Reply then used developers based in Belarus – Russia’s closest ally – one of whom was actually working from home in Tomsk, Siberia, according to documents submitted to the MoD’s inquiry.

That firm, as well as the individuals responsible, should be blacklisted from government work. That they’d even consider covering it up is despicable.

What could possibly go wrong with having a nation we’re in a hostile proxy war with writing software for our strategic assets.

What fresh hell is this! FFS I’m actually speechless.

Next thing you know they had a hidden code that only aims missiles towards the UK lol.

Crikey, I worked in that industry 15 years ago and this seems insane to me. When I think back on the sheet level of security involved, the briefings we had about Russia, and how seriously they talked about the official secrets act it seems incredible to me that someone would try this.

I used a russian software once. It was an Ethereum/(or other Eth based coin) miner app. Worked well, right up until Russian invasion on Ukraine. When Russia found out that the West is sending weapons to help Ukraine. My miner stopped working. It never mined anything any more. I had to use a less effective massage net to continue.

I read through the entire article and couldn’t see anything about arrests as a result.

Surely leaking state nuclear information to a hostile nation should be considered treasonous? 

Edit to add: Just had a google of the company WM Reply who did this and they look to still be going and are now working with British Gas. That’s not concerning at all…

Tory private contract outsourcing has truly doomed this country.