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The cybercriminals were paid by a tycoon to spy on Mr Hammond by allegedly getting into his emails. It is unclear whether the April 2018 bid was successful but the criminal network’s database, which has been studied by investigative journalists, recorded the hacking as “completed”.
Mr Hammond, who was Chancellor from 2016 to 2019, was dealing with Brexit and the aftermath of the Salisbury novichok poisonings at the time. He told the Sunday Times Insight team: “It’ll be something to do with Brexit, I wasn’t aware of this.”
The newspaper said it and the Bureau of Investigative Journalism had been given access to the India-based hacking gang’s database.
The leaked material revealed the “extraordinary scale of the attacks”.
It shows the criminals targeted more than 100 private email accounts for investigators working for “autocratic states, British lawyers and their wealthy clients,” the newspaper said.
Some of the hackers’ clients are said to be private eyes working for major law firms with offices in the City of London.
Victims include critics of the regime in Qatar who threatened to expose alleged wrongdoing by the Gulf state in the run up to this month’s World Cup.
As well as breaking into email inboxes, the cyber crooks are also said to have seized control of computers of Pakistan’s politicians, generals and diplomats so they could eavesdrop on private conversations.
The gang is alleged to have targeted Liz Truss’s chief of staff Mark Fullbrook in May 2016 when he was working for a lobbying firm run by election strategist Sir Lynton Crosby.
Chris Mason, the BBC’s political editor, was allegedly sent phishing emails to break into his email inbox shortly after he got the job last May.
Mr Mason, who does not believe the attempt was successful, may have been targeted by criminals who thought he got confidential messages from sources via email.
Other victims are said to be the President of Switzerland and his deputy days after he met the then Prime Minister Boris Johnson to discuss Russian sanctions.
The hackers are also said to have broken into the email in-boxes of Ruth Buscombe, the British head of race strategy for the Alfa Romeo Formula One racing team.
The criminal operation is said to be run by a 31-year-old man in a fourth-floor apartment in Gurugram, India.
He is said to have told undercover reporters he had been hired to spy on Fifa, football’s governing body. He claimed he was working for a client “sponsored by a Gulf country”.
The country is said to be Qatar and the client is a private investigator based in Switzerland, the newspaper said. Other clients are alleged to be British private investigators.
Among the victims were Michel Platini, of Fifa, who backed Qatar’s bid to host the World Cup and Jonathan Calvert, editor of the Sunday Times Insight team.
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