The UK’s ministry of defence (MoD) has not yet commented on the report, but defence minister Grant Shapps is due to make a statement to parliament on Tuesday.

Sky said the government would not name the country involved, but it is understood that China was behind an attack on a payroll system that secured names and bank details of current service personnel and some veterans. The Sky article did not provide details of its sourcing for the China attribution.

British work and pensions minister Mel Stride said the database, which was managed by an external contractor, had been taken offline quickly and that more information on the attack would be provided soon.

“The MoD has acted very swiftly to take this database offline. It’s a third-party database and certainly not one run directly by the MoD,” he told Sky News.

The UK accused Chinese hackers and a Chinese entity in March of being behind two high-profile attacks in recent years, targeting lawmakers critical of China, and the country’s electoral watchdog.

The Chinese embassy in London said at the time that those claims were “totally fabricated”. China has not responded to the Sky News report.