The personal mobile phone numbers of three British cabinet ministers have been found published online, days after Prime Minister Andy Burnham was targeted by an impersonation scam.
Politico reported on August 17 that the numbers of defence secretary Wes Streeting, justice secretary Alex Norris and Northern Ireland secretary Chris Bryant appeared alongside their names. The outlet said it would not disclose where the details were listed, to avoid creating a further security risk.
All three ministers declined to comment. A reference containing Streeting’s number has since been taken down and officials were understood to be working to remove the others.
A source said Streeting conducted all his government business on his official government phone.
The discovery followed a separate report that Burnham had exchanged messages with someone posing as Susie Wiles, White House chief of staff to US President Donald Trump. The Prime Minister sent what Politico described as a few messages “of no significance” before growing suspicious.
Burnham then reported the contact to security authorities, according to an official cited by The New York Times. The exchange took place entirely by text and involved no call.
Downing Street declined to comment on the episode. The British embassy in Washington raised the matter with the White House out of concern that Wiles’ phone had been compromised for a second time.
The White House said the contact “had nothing to do with the chief of staff’s devices being hacked”. Wiles was the subject of an FBI inquiry in 2025 after an impersonator reached senators, governors and business figures using her contacts.
Prerana Joshi, a research fellow in the cyber and tech team at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), said the public availability of ministers’ direct numbers carried a clear danger. She warned the numbers could be spoofed and used to call other people while Britain faced “an elevated threat level”.
The case adds to a run of security incidents across Europe. French authorities are examining a cybercriminal’s claim of a large data breach at the education ministry, reported on August 18.
Burnham took office on July 20 as the seventh person to lead Britain in a decade, after Keir Starmer resigned. He handed Streeting the defence brief in his first cabinet.
The affair revives a familiar problem in Westminster. Boris Johnson’s personal number was found to have sat online for 15 years while he was prime minister, prompting warnings from a former national security adviser that hostile states and criminal gangs could reach him directly.
Downing Street did not say whether any measures had been taken to prevent another breach.
