The British Parliament Hit by Cyberattack Affecting Email Access

The British Parliament has been hit by a “sustained and determined” cyberattack attack to email system in an apparent attempt to break into the accounts of hundreds of MPs, Lords and their staffs, according to a House of Commons spokesperson, on last Saturday in local time in U.K. The Department of Health of UK had been hit by cyberattack “WannaCry” just in last month.

The Parliament sent mails to those affected accounts, saying that “in the earlier of this morning, we found an unusual activity, there was evidence showed someone attempted to attack our computer network.”

“confirmed that hackers were carrying out a sustained and determined attack on all parliamentary user accounts in an attempt to identify weak passwords.” parliamentary authorities said.

The attack prompted security services had to shut down access to anyone outside the Palace of Westminster, where the two houses of Parliament meet.

The spokesperson said their account unable to access to outside of the Palace of Westminster after the hacking.
But spokesperson also said there was only less than 1% of 9,000 users in IT system that was affected with hacking.

A Liberal Democrat member of the House of Lords, Chris Rennard, post in a Twitter message on Saturday, saying those with “urgent messages” should text him.

“Closer investigation by our team confirmed that hackers were carrying out a sustained and determined attack on all parliamentary user accounts in attempt to identify weak passwords,” the security message said, “We are continuing to investigate this incident and take further measures to secure the computer network, liaising with the National Cyber Security Center.”

The attack comes days after reports that Russian hackers had put passwords belonging to “tens of thousands of government officials” for sale online earlier this week.