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A UK business minister has said he cannot confirm or deny whether the major cyber attack on Jaguar Land Rover was state-sponsored. When pressed by the Conservatives to reveal who was behind the attack, Chris Bryant said he will not ‘jump to conclusions’, with investigations ongoing. Jaguar Land Rover shut down its systems on August 31 after becoming aware of issues affecting its global operations. The UK car manufacturer, which is owned by India’s Tata Motors, revealed its production and sales had been ‘severely disrupted’, with factory staff told to work from home. A group of hackers, who targeted Marks and Spencer and other British brands, reportedly claimed on messaging app Telegram that they were behind the attack. Speaking in the Commons on Tuesday, shadow business minister Harriett Baldwin asked the minister to ‘rule out this being a state-sponsored attack’. Bryant replied: ‘Can I say who’s responsible? No, I’m afraid I can’t. ‘I note what is in the public domain, I have no idea whether that is accurate or not, and I don’t want to impede the investigation. ‘[Baldwin] asked, is it state-sponsored? Again, I don’t want to jump to conclusions. I can’t, I’m afraid, I can neither confirm nor deny anything. ‘And she asked, furthermore, whether&this case was linked with that of M&S. Again, I can’t answer that question as fulsomely as I would like to be able to, simply because I don’t know, and I don’t think anybody has come to any secure decisions on that.’ Bryant also told MPs the government intends to bring its Cyber Security & Resilience Bill to the Commons ‘soon’. Labour’s Derek Twigg, the MP for Widnes and Halewood who tabled an urgent question on the issue, warned ‘there could be an ongoing and even more serious effect on our economy’. In his response, Sir Chris said: ‘We simply cannot afford any degree of complacency in this, there are major criminals operating in this space, as well as some malicious state actors, and some 40% of companies in the UK last year reported that they had faced some kind of cyber attack. ‘So it is a very important issue that we take seriously.’ JLR said earlier this week it was ‘working at pace’ to restart its operations across retail and production sites. The company stressed there was ‘no evidence’ that any customer data has been stolen in the attack. Bryant pledged to provide ‘every possible support’ to JLR and other companies in its supply chain. Tory former defence secretary Sir Gavin Williamson, who is MP for Stone, Great Wyrley and Penkridge, said: ‘The attack on JLR is not the first of its kind...you will see increasingly state actors using criminal gangs, whether originating from Russia, North Korea, Iran, using this as a way of getting hard cash into those countries. ‘What more can the minister and the state do to really support our businesses with the robust type of defence that’s required because they are fighting states, and they need to have this state right behind them?’ Bryant said the government ‘need to keep our eyes very wide open’ to ‘the fact that there are undoubtedly foreign state actors who want to interfere in our businesses’. The minister also warned firms and organisations over the threat posed by ransomware attacks where criminals snatch data and demand cash in exchange for its release. By Rhiannon James and Nick Lester, PA Political Staff source: PA Copyright 2025 Alliance News Ltd. All Rights Reserved.
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