Foreign hackers may have tried to influence Brexit vote, warn MPs
THE EU referendum may have been targeted by foreign cyber hackers trying to influence the outcome of the vote, MPs have warned.
An official website to enable people to register to vote collapsed hours before the official deadline, forcing it to be extended.
The Commons public administration and constitutional affairs select committee said there were “indications” that the website had been brought down by a mass cyber attack.
The MPs warn that hackers may have used “botnets”, computers which they have taken over, to carry out a cyber attack known as a “distributed denial of service” (DDOS). Hackers take over tens of thousands of computers and use them to flood websites with so much traffic that they collapse.
The MPs warned that Russia and China are attempting use cyber attacks to influence politics. US intelligence agencies have previously accused state-linked Russian hackers of attempting to influence last year’s presidential election.
MPs said: “We do not rule out the possibility that there was foreign interference in the EU referendum caused by a DDOS using botnets, though we do not believe that any such interference had any material effect on the outcome of the EU referendum.”
The report says that the UK must learn lessons about “protection and resilience against possible foreign interference” in elections.
The MPs also found that public trust in the civil service was “damaged” dur- ing the referendum campaign because it appeared to be biased against Brexit.
They highlighted the civil service’s role in producing reports warning that Brexit could send the economy into recession and leaflets advocating Remain that were sent to every household in the country.
Bernard Jenkin, the chairman of the committee, said: “It is of the highest importance that the referendum process is seen to be fair, by both sides, and that the result is agreed to, even if not with, by both sides.”
The report said that the civil service code should be amended to ensure officials are as impartial during referendum campaigns as they are during general elections.
The report said: “There were many occasions when it appeared to many that civil servants were being drawn into referendum controversy.
“This damaged the reputations of the civil and diplomatic services for impartiality.”
The EU’s credit rating will be damaged if Britain refuses to pay a Brexit divorce bill, one of the world’s biggest ratings agencies has warned. Standard & Poor’s said the EU’s AA credit rating “could come under pressure” if the UK refused to meet its “financial obligations”. The EU is demanding the UK pay a bill in the region of £50 billion as it leaves the bloc.
‘We do not rule out the possibility that there was foreign interference in the referendum using botnets’