Cyber attack on MPs ‘was work of Russia or China’

Up to 90 email accounts were compromised by hackers, say security chiefs

RUSSIA and China were last night named as the prime suspects behind the unprecedented cyber attack on Parliament.

Up to 90 email accounts were ‘compromised’ after hackers launched the crippling strike – understood to be the biggest against Westminster.

MPs and peers, including Cabinet ministers, were warned they could be exposed to blackmail or a heightened terror threat after a ‘determined and sustained’ effort to break into the sensitive files.

Officials insisted national security was not harmed by the ‘brute force attack’ on the Parliamentary computer system on Friday. The Prime Minister was not affected as she does not use her Parliamentary account.

A senior security source said: ‘This appears to have been statesponsored. Investigations are focusing on Russia or China.’

Because the cyber attack was not targeted at individuals, the motivations are ‘a little obscure’, said the Whitehall official.

They added: ‘We are keeping an open mind. It could have been blackmail, to gain access to compromising information, to seek influence or simply to show us that it could be done.’

The attack came after repeated claims that the Kremlin has sought to interfere in foreign elections, including last year’s US presidential campaign.

Russia also orchestrated an attack on UK government departments and broadcasters before the 2015 general election, which was thwarted by intelligence agency GCHQ.

If Moscow’s involvement is confirmed, the incident will further cool diplomatic relations, which have been in the deep freeze since Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko was murdered in a London hotel in November 2006 in a Kremlinsponsored ‘hit’. Conservative MP Jacob Rees-Mogg said the episode appeared to be ‘an attack on the nation by another nation’.

He told ITV’s Peston on Sunday show: ‘It is concerning. It would have been more concerning if it had been the Ministry of Defence that had been hacked. This is an attack on the nation by another nation and that’s really tricky in terms of foreign affairs.’

Alan Mendoza, executive director of the Henry Jackson Society security think-tank, said: ‘This has all the hallmarks of a statesponsored cyber attack. Given recent, similar incidents, suspi- cion is quite rightly falling on the Russian government.’

It comes a month after hackers in North Korea crippled the IT systems of 48 NHS trusts, locking doctors and nurses out of their computers and causing thousands of operations to be cancelled.

The electronic assault on Parliament lasted more than 12 hours as hackers repeatedly probed the passwords of 9,000 politicians, staff and officials. A computer programme bombarded email accounts with messages to find a gap in security and gain entry.

When the hack was discovered on Friday morning, security chiefs stopped MPs, peers and staff from remotely accessing emails via mobile phones and computers.

Up to 90 accounts were compromised – fewer than one per cent. But Whitehall officials said it was ‘inevitable’ some personal information would have been stolen.

A spokesman said Parliament would meet as planned today. They said the network was compromised due to ‘weak passwords’ which did not conform to Parliamentary Digital Service guidance.

The spokesman added: ‘As they are identified, the individuals whose accounts have been compromised have been contacted and investigations to determine whether any data has been lost are under way.’

The National Cyber Security Centre and National Crime Agency are probing the incident, which comes after it emerged that passwords for Cabinet ministers and MPs were being sold online by Russian hackers.

International Trade Secretary Liam Fox said: ‘We know that our public services are attacked so it is not at all surprising that there should be an attempt to hack into parliamentary emails. It is a warning to everybody.’

It also emerged that concerns about Parliament’s cyber defences were raised seven months ago. A report on cyber security said there were ‘gaps in high-level governance of information issues’.