LONDON: Britain´s parliament was hit bya cyber attack on Saturday in which hackers tried to accessemail accounts, politicians and officials said, just over amonth after a ransomware attack crippled parts of the country´shealth service.
Chris Rennard, a member of the Liberal Democrat party in theupper House of Lords, was the first to draw attention to theproblem, using Twitter to announce: "Cyber security attack onWestminster, Parliamentary emails may not work remotely, Texturgent messages.
"A spokeswoman for the House of Commons confirmed thatunauthorised attempts had been made to access parliamentary useraccounts and that systems were in place to protect member andstaff accounts.
"We are continuing to investigate this incident and takefurther measures to secure the computer network, liaising withthe National Cyber Security Centre," the spokeswoman said.
The BBC said lawmakers were unable to access their emailsaway from Westminster due to the steps being taken to manage theissue.
Britain´s National Health Service was hit by a massiveransomware worm in May which crippled the computer system andforced some hospitals to turn away patients and divertambulances.
Liam Fox, the minister for international trade, said theattack was not a surprise and should act as a warning toBritons.
"We´ve seen reports in the last few days of even cabinetministers´ passwords being for sale online," he toldbroadcasters.
"We know that our public services are attacked so it´s notat all surprising that there should be an attempt to hack intoparliamentary emails.
"Part of the GCHQ spy agency, the National Cyber Securitycentre was set up in October last year to tackle what thegovernment believes is one of the biggest threats to Britishsecurity.