Members of Parliament Fall Victim to Cyber Attack

Members of Parliament Fall Victim to Cyber Attack

Fewer than 90 email accounts with weak passwords are believed to have been hacked in “sustained” attack.

  • Jun 26, 2017

Fewer than 90 email accounts belonging to parliamentarians are believed to have been hacked, a parliamentary spokesman said on Friday. Although the investigation is in the early stages, police believe the Russian government is behind the cyber attack.

The disclosure of the suspected culprit comes after the release of the first details of what security experts are calling a “sustained” cyber attack that began on Friday. Officials were forced to lock MPs out of their own email accounts as they scrambled to minimize the damage from the incident. They feared the hack could lead to blackmail attempts.

The network that was affected is used by every MP including Theresa May, the prime minister, and her cabinet ministers for dealing with constituents.

Officials believe that the attack was more likely to like with another country rather than a small group of hackers saying, “This was a brute force attack. It appears to have been state-sponsored.”

The hackers looked to gain access to accounts protected by weak passwords. Only one percent of the 9,000 email accounts were compromised.

The estate’s digital services team said they had made changes to accounts to block out hackers and allow staff to access their emails.

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