Parliament targeted in ‘sustained’ cyberattack

Parliament has been hit by a cyberattack, days after an online group claimed it had hacked ministers’ email accounts.

An email sent to parliamentarians on Friday and shown to Sky News said: "Earlier this morning we discovered unusual activity and evidence of an attempted cyberattack on our computer network.

"Closer investigation by our team confirmed that hackers were carrying out a sustained and determined attack on all parliamentary user accounts in an attempt to identify weak passwords.

"These attempts specifically were trying to gain access to users’ emails."

Senior MPs have said they still cannot access their emails today and have been warned that more services could be made unavailable as they "continue to work through security processes".

A House of Commons spokeswoman said: "We are continuing to investigate this incident and take further measures to secure the computer network, liaising with the National Cyber Security Centre.

"We have systems in place to protect member and staff accounts and are taking the necessary steps to protect our systems."

The lack of remote access to emails was not part of the attack but was due to measures taken by those trying to deal with the incident.

"Parliament has disabled remote access to protect the network," she said.

Sky’s Home Affairs Editor Mark White said: "It comes just a few days after an online group claimed it had hacked the email accounts and passwords of Government ministers and was offering that for sale.

"It comes just a month after that huge ransomware attack that affected many NHS trusts across the UK."

International Trade Secretary Liam Fox said: "We know there are regular attacks by hackers attempting to get passwords.

"We’ve seen reports in the last few days of even cabinet ministers’ passwords being for sale online.

"It is not at all surprising that there should be an attempt to hack into parliamentary emails and it is a warning to everybody, whether they are in Parliament or elsewhere, that they need to do everything possible to maintain their own cybersecurity."

A spokesman for the National Cyber Security Centre said: "The NCSC is aware of incident and working around the clock with the UK Parliamentary digital security team to understand what has happened and advise on the necessary mitigating actions."

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(c) Sky News 2017: Parliament targeted in ‘sustained’ cyberattack