Jack Burgess
Live editor

We're bringing our live coverage of this story to a close now, but before we go let's quickly recap today's main developments.

• Deputy Prime Minister Oliver Dowden has told the House of Commons that China is responsible for “malicious cyber campaigns” targeting the Electoral Commission and MPs
• Dowden says two people and a company linked to the Chinese state have been sanctioned by the UK government
• The deputy PM has also said the campaigns against the Electoral Commission's systems happened in 2021 and 2022 - but insisted no harm came of the cyber-attacks

• Dowden has told MPs he would be summoning the Chinese ambassador for an explanation of what happened
• He also says the attacks by China have not succeeded and the government was taking steps to "address the threat"
• A Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson has rejected the accusations, while the Chinese Embassy in London has called the claims "fabricated and malicious slanders"
• Sir Iain Duncan Smith - one of the MPs who says he has been targeted by cyber-attacks - says the sanctions are not enough and likened them to "an elephant giving birth to a mouse"

You can carry on reading here with our developing story in the US: Millions of Americans caught up in Chinese hacking plot - US

And also our story on the UK's response: UK sanctions Chinese company over cyber-attacks

Today's page was edited by Nadia Ragozhina, Marita Moloney and myself.

It was written by Ali Abbas Ahmadi, Thomas Mackintosh, Tarik Habte and Gem O'Reilly.

Ali Abbas Ahmadi
Live reporter

The UK government's sanctions on two individuals and one company are "just a tiny, micro, baby step forward" in countering China's influence in the UK, says Mark Sabah, the UK and EU director of the Committee for Freedom in Hong Kong Foundation.

Speaking to the BBC, Sabah welcomes these sanctions but says they are "not even a significant step in the right direction".

There should have been dozens of individuals and companies affiliated to the Chinese state sanctioned if the government was serious about taking action, he says.

Sabah adds that the UK's continued "inaction" over China's behaviour - such as a strongly-worded statement in response to when China "unilaterally tore up" the Sino-British Agreement (that obliges Beijing to uphold Hong Kong's autonomy) - has emboldened China to continue acting as it wants.

Image source, Reuters

If UK's intelligence agencies are saying we are susceptible to Chinese attacks and we do “absolutely nothing”, Sabah says, then of course Beijing is going to continue behaving the same way.

Image source, Reuters

More now from the United States, as the justice department and FBI have revealed millions of Americans' online accounts have been caught up in a "sinister" Chinese hacking plot.

They say US officials were targeted adding the plot allegedly went on for over a decade.

In an indictment unsealed against seven of the alleged Chinese hackers involved, US prosecutors said the hacking resulted in the confirmed or potential compromise of work accounts, personal emails, online storage and telephone call records.

The aim of the global hacking operation was to "repress critics of the Chinese regime, compromise government institutions, and steal trade secrets," Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco said in a statement.

• This is a developing story and you can read more here

Seven Chinese nationals have been charged with conspiracy to commit computer intrusions and conspiracy to commit wire fraud in New York.

A statement from the US Attorney's Office in New York states that they were involved with a hacking group that spent roughly 14 years targeting critics of Beijing in the United States and elsewhere.

Businesses and political officials were also targeted to further China's "economic espionage and foreign intelligence objectives".

MPs targeted by China don't think UK's doing enoughpublished at 17:01 Greenwich Mean Time 25 March

17:01 GMT 25 March

Damian Grammaticas
Political correspondent

MPs who have been targeted by China clearly don’t think the UK is doing enough.

Oliver Dowden described a “cyber threat posed by China-affiliated actors”.

That’s still short of what the MPs want which is to have China as a whole designated a “threat”.

The UK’s official position remains China is an “epoch-defining challenge”.

The MPs want a clear message to China and believe the distinction matters.

Image source, NEIL HALL/EPA-EFE

In the detail too, the UK appears to be treading carefully. It has described the two individuals and one organisation as “Chinese state-affiliated” and imposed economic sanctions.

Contrast that with the US government. It has today unsealed criminal charges against the same two individuals, along with five others, for conspiracy to commit computer intrusions.

It has described their actions as part of a “Chinese government” attempt to “target and intimidate its critics”.

And has detailed what they did, including sending “over 10,000 malicious emails” to “repress critics of the Chinese regime, compromise government institutions, and steal trade secrets”.

Image source, Getty Images

We have some reaction to bring you from China now.

On the Chinese Embassy's website , externalthere's a question posed to China's ambassador to the UK - Zheng Zeguang.

It asks: "according to media reports, the UK government will accuse China of launching cyber attacks against the UK. What is your comment?"

There's a response that appears to be from a spokesperson for the embassy, which says the "so-called cyber attacks" by China against the UK are completely "fabricated and malicious slanders".

"We strongly oppose such accusations. China has always firmly fought all forms of cyber-attacks according to law," it continues by saying.

The reply also says China does not "encourage, support or condone cyber-attacks" and opposes the "politicisation of cybersecurity issues" and "baseless denigration of other countries without factual evidence".

UK wants to protect its national interests from Chinese threatspublished at 16:48 Greenwich Mean Time 25 March

16:48 GMT 25 March

James Landale
Diplomatic correspondent

The British government has a three-pronged policy towards China.

The tag line is “protect, align, engage”.

The UK wants to protect its national interests from Chinese threats, it wants to align with allies to agree a collective position towards Beijing, and it wants to engage with China on global issues such as trade and climate change.

The decision to name and shame Chinese state affiliated actors for cyber-attacks on Britain forms part of that first policy, namely protecting the UK.

And this is familiar.

In 2020 the UK decided to phase out Chinese-made Huawei equipment from its 5G network because of potential security fears.

In recent months, there has been a partial warming in relations.

The then Foreign Secretary James Cleverly, gave a speech last year emphasising the importance of engaging with China.

He also visited the country, the first foreign secretary to do so in five years.

So the calling out of the cyber threat from China will shift the dial the other way and prompt angry denials from Beijing.

But it will probably not change the fundamental basis of the UK-Sino relationship which blows hot and cold.

To some this betrays inconsistency.

To others, inevitability.

A little while ago we heard from former UK diplomat to China Charles Parton, who tells the BBC he shares the prime minister's concerns over China.

Parton adds that the UK should "keep up [its] levels of protection and defences" even as it co-operates with China.

Speaking to BBC News, Parton says Beijing is trying to make the UK government more amenable to Chinese interests, and says it's "definitely something we need to defend ourselves against".

Why the Electoral Commission hack was so shockingpublished at 16:33 Greenwich Mean Time 25 March

16:33 GMT 25 March

Joe Tidy
Cyber correspondent

We've just seen deputy PM Oliver Dowden tells MPs that China is responsible for “malicious cyber campaigns” targeting the Electoral Commission and MPs.

The sheer size of this hack on the Electoral Commission was eye watering – 40 million people affected. But as ever with cyber-attacks, it’s the quality of data that’s more important than quantity.

On that metric it was still one of the most significant hacks in history for the British public.

Databases containing the names and addresses of all registered voters were able to be read and copied by hackers.

The Electoral Commission played it down at the time arguing that the data was already "largely in the public domain". However, it transpired that more than half of the data – so tens of millions of records weren’t publicly available at all.

So make no mistake – this could have put a vast amount of private data into the hands of cyber criminals (we still don’t know if they actually did access them).

However, due to the nature of this hack – for espionage, not money – the accessed data of the general public is probably less important to Chinese cyber spies. It’s likely that having been able to read the toing and froing of sensitive emails between election officials for over a year during six by-elections would have been far more valuable.

Former Tory party leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith, who is one of the MPs affected by the Chinese cyber-attack, says he welcomes the sanctioning of the two individuals, but says the deputy PM's announcement is a "like an elephant giving birth to a mouse".

He says Beijing has "trashed the Sino-British agreement" and has been "committing murder and genocide in Xinjiang" over the past three years. He asks, so why has the UK only sanctioned two people?

Oliver Dowden replies by saying that "nobody should be in any doubt about the gravity of this matter" and adds they are "not the actions of a friendly state".

He says the measures announced today are a "first step" and asserts that the government will respond proportionally.

"Nobody should be in any doubt about the government's determination to face down and deal with these threats to our national security from wherever they come," he concludes.

Dowden is back on his feet insisting the UK will do what is necessary to protect the UK's systems as he answers a couple of questions raised by Labour's Pat McFadden.

He says Foreign Secretary Lord Cameron's past and present relations and links with China will have been the subject of usual scrutiny.

Dowden explains that the former prime minister David Cameron is due to speak to the Conservative backbench group, known as the 1922 Committee, later today "on a range of issues" - distancing it from a specific briefing on what has been announced this afternoon.

Finally, Dowden insists should leaders of the opposition or any other Westminster party wish to have a particular briefing on this matter, then he will make himself available to do so in the normal way.

The deputy prime minister has now finished his statement to the Commons.

Closing his speech, Dowden insists our UK political institutions "have not been harmed by these attacks".

MPs are now responding to the statement on cyber security and UK democracy.

Labour's Pat McFadden says his party stands with the government on calling out China and says he wants Dowden to say more about the assessment of the Chinese government's motives for carrying out cyber attacks.

"With an election coming it is vital people have confidence in their ability to register and vote," McFadden adds.

Dowden continues by insisting the UK government will condemn "in the strongest terms" threatening behaviours by China and says preventative action will be taken.

He says the cyber threat from China, "is real and serious" but equalled by the government's resolve to resist it.

Dowden goes on to talk about artificial intelligence, and says the Summit for Democracy provided the UK with a platform to build international agreement to counter the deceptive use of AI by foreign states during elections.

It is important, he says, for allies and other partners across Europe and the Indo-Pacific region to stand in solidarity with the UK's efforts to "call out malicious cyber activity".

Dowden says he will be summoning the Chinese ambassador.

He says the UK's policy on China is anchored in the country's core national interests but that "swift and robust action" would be taken when China threatens the UK.

Dowden insists the UK will continue to hold China accountable.

This a consistent pattern of behaviour that "signals hostile behaviour from China", the Deputy PM continues by saying.

He announces that the UK has sanctioned two individuals and one entity associated with the Chinese state-affiliated APT 31 group for its involvement in "malicious cyber activity targeting officials, government entities and parliamentarians around the world".

He adds that the UK is acting to warn of the "breadth of targeting" from Chinese state-affiliated actors who want to threaten our democratic institutions.

Dowden now turns to the second alleged malicious cyber act that he wants to discuss.

The Deputy PM says it’s “almost certain” that the China state-affiliated APT 31 group “conducted reconnaissance activity” against UK parliamentarians during a separate campaign in 2021.

The email campaign by APT 31 was blocked by Parliament's cyber security measures and it was "entirely unsuccessful", he says.

"However, any targeting of members of this House is completely unacceptable," Dowden adds.

The Deputy PM tells Parliament that between 2021 and 2022 the Electoral Commission system in the UK said it had been the victim of a "complex cyber-attack".

He adds the attack did not succeed but tells the Commons "it was the work of Chinese state actors".

Dowden insists the security of elections have not been affected and further steps have been taken to increase the resilience of its systems.

Dowden continues by saying the government want to be as open as possible with the House of Commons and the British public concerning the attack, in order to call out a "pattern of hostile activity" from China.

He says Chinese-state actors have been targeting Parliamentarians in the UK and other nations.

Dowden says China's disregard of human rights and dissenting voices is a cause for concern.

Dowden lists the two cyber attacks that he believes China is responsible for.

Firstly, he says China is responsible for an attack on the UK Electoral Commission between 2021 and 2022

Secondly, Dowden says China ‘conducted reconnaissance activity’ against parliamentarians in 2021.

The Deputy PM adds that other countries, including the United States, will issue similar statements later today.