Hackers target UK parliament email accounts

After a report from The London TImes that the email addresses and passwords of British cabinet members and other government officials were being traded by Russian hackers, it looks like the inevitable next step has occurred: a cyberattack on the UK parliament.

According to Bloomberg, the Parliament along with the UK’s National Cyber Security Centre are investigating an attack that started on Friday evening. To reduce the chances of being breached, remote access to email accounts has been disabled. In a statement, a parliament spokesperson said it was investigating “unauthorised attempts to access accounts of parliamentary networks users.”

Parliament members took to Twitter to report on the removal of remote access and asked fellow members to text any urgent messages.

Cyber security attack on Westminster Parliamentary e.mails may not work remotely Text urgent messages @LibDemLords @LabourLordsUK @Torypeers

— Chris Rennard (@LordRennard) June 24, 2017

So far it looks like the attack has been largely unsuccessful at penetrating the government’s servers. Still, the UK has had a rough couple of months. In May, UK hospitals were crippled by the WannaCry ransom attack.

Sorry no parliamentary email access today – we’re under cyber attack from Kim Jong Un, Putin or a kid in his mom’s basement or something…

— Henry Smith MP (@HenrySmithUK) June 24, 2017

As hackers become more sophisticated, are backed by nations and continue to get access to leaked government-held exploits, attacks like this will unfortunately become more common.

Source: Bloomberg