UK opposition Labour Party criticised over ‘large-scale’ cyber attack claim
Britain’s Labour Party is facing criticism over its cyber attack claim as experts reveal it was “cheap and unsophisticated”.
A week into campaigning for the December 12 general election, the main opposition party revealed it had been a victim of a cyber attack on Monday.
But yesterday experts revealed the cyber attack was carried out with a cheap piece of equipment that can easily be bought on the dark web.
The nation’s cybersecurity investigators did not even rank the incident on the lowest threat-level category.
Cybersecurity expert Kevin Beaumont said the attack was “not sophisticated” and the party was protected by its security systems. “This was a denial of service attack.
“Labour use Cloudflare who soaked it up. It was not sophisticated,” he tweeted.
Earlier, Labour said the party experienced a “sophisticated and large-scale cyber attack”.
Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said yesterday: “It was a very serious attack against us.
“If this is a sign of things to come in this election then I feel very nervous about it all because a cyber attack against a political party in an election is suspicious and something one is very worried about.”
A party representative said: “We took swift action and these attempts failed due to our robust security systems.
“The integrity of all our platforms was maintained and we are confident that no data breach occurred.” The incident came amid mounting pressure from the Labour Party on the government to publish a report into Russian interference in UK politics.
On Monday, Hillary Clinton expressed surprise that the UK government had failed to release the report.
Speaking to the BBC, the former US presidential candidate said the public needs to know what is in the report by Parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee before British voters go to the polls.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s government has said it needs more time to review the security implications of the report before it is released.
Critics say the report is being withheld until after the
election because it is embarrassing for Mr Johnson’s Conservatives. Former Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into the 2016 US presidential election found that Russia interfered in the vote in a “sweeping and systemic” fashion.
The investigation started a debate on freedom and the integrity of elections worldwide.
On Tuesday, Mr Corbyn told a campaign rally that pledges by prominent Brexit campaigner Nigel Farage to stand down his Brexit Party candidates in Conservative seats were signs of an alliance between the two parties and Mr Trump.
“I think what we have before us is an alliance between Nigel Farage, Donald Trump and Boris Johnson,” he said.