British Parliament Hit by Cyberattack
Hackers have attempted to breach Internet accounts associated with the UK Parliament, triggering a security response that left lawmakers unable to access their emails outside of Westminster this weekend
IsraelDefense
| 25/06/2017
British parliament under cyberattack (Photo: AP)
The British Parliament was the target of a cyberattack that left many legislators unable to connect to their email on Saturday as remote access to accounts was disabled as a security measure.
The Houses of Parliament "discovered unauthorized attempts to access accounts of parliamentary network users" and is actively investigating the incident in coordination with the UK National Cyber Security Center (NCSC), it said in a statement.
Members of Parliament were first warned about the attempted cyberattack Friday evening, BBC reported. The alert said Parliament’s IT services department had detected "unusual activity" on its network and confirmed upon further investigation that hackers had conducted "a sustained and determined attack on all parliamentary user accounts in an attempt to identify weak passwords," according to a copy of the notification seen by The Guardian.
Hackers "specifically were trying to gain access to our emails," the notice said, according to The Guardian. It was not immediately clear if any of the attempted intrusions were successful.
"Parliament has robust measures in place to protect all of our accounts and systems, and we are taking the necessary steps to protect and secure our network," its press office said in a statement Saturday. "As a precaution, we have temporarily restricted remote access to the network. As a result, some Members of Parliament and staff cannot access their email accounts outside of Westminster."
[Source: The Washington Times]
Hackers have attempted to breach Internet accounts associated with the UK Parliament, triggering a security response that left lawmakers unable to access their emails outside of Westminster this weekend
British parliament under cyberattack (Photo: AP)
The British Parliament was the target of a cyberattack that left many legislators unable to connect to their email on Saturday as remote access to accounts was disabled as a security measure.
The Houses of Parliament "discovered unauthorized attempts to access accounts of parliamentary network users" and is actively investigating the incident in coordination with the UK National Cyber Security Center (NCSC), it said in a statement.
Members of Parliament were first warned about the attempted cyberattack Friday evening, BBC reported. The alert said Parliament’s IT services department had detected "unusual activity" on its network and confirmed upon further investigation that hackers had conducted "a sustained and determined attack on all parliamentary user accounts in an attempt to identify weak passwords," according to a copy of the notification seen by The Guardian.
Hackers "specifically were trying to gain access to our emails," the notice said, according to The Guardian. It was not immediately clear if any of the attempted intrusions were successful.
"Parliament has robust measures in place to protect all of our accounts and systems, and we are taking the necessary steps to protect and secure our network," its press office said in a statement Saturday. "As a precaution, we have temporarily restricted remote access to the network. As a result, some Members of Parliament and staff cannot access their email accounts outside of Westminster."
[Source: The Washington Times]
