UK Parliament hit by cyber attack

THE UK Parliament has been hit by a cyber security attack.

Officials were forced to put emergency digital security measures in place after unauthorised attempts to access parliamentary accounts were discovered on Friday night. MPs and peers later complained that following the attempted hack they were unable to remotely access their emails.

The attack follows reports that passwords for MPs and officials were being sold online by Russian hackers.

A Commons spokeswoman said: “The Houses of Parliament have discovered unauthorised attempts to access parliamentary user accounts. 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.” She confirmed that Parliament officials had disabled remote access in order to protect the network.

Liberal Democrat peer Chris Rennard took to Twitter to request those with urgent enquiries send a text as he was unable to access emails due to the attack. Meanwhile, Henry Smith, Tory MP for Crawley, tweeted: “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 ...”

The National Crime Agency said it was working with the National Cyber Security Centre, “leading on the operational response”.