The UK Parliament has been hit by a cyber-security attack that has left MPs unable to access their emails.
MPs were informed about the hack last night and have struggled to access their official Parliament email accounts remotely.
“The Houses of Parliament have discovered unauthorised attempts to access parliamentary user accounts,” a House of Commons spokesperson said.
“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,” the spokesperson added.
Chris Rennard, a member of the Liberal Democrat party in the upper House of Lords, was the first to draw attention to the problem, using Twitter to announce: “Cyber security attack on Westminster, Parliamentary emails may not work remotely, Text urgent messages.”
A spokeswoman for the House of Commons confirmed that unauthorised attempts had been made to access parliamentary accounts and said systems were in place to protect member and staff details.
“As a precaution we have temporarily restricted remote access to the network,” she said. “As a result, some Members of Parliament and staff cannot access their email accounts outside, of Westminster.”
Liam Fox, the minister for international trade, said the attack was not a surprise and should act as a warning to people across the country to the threat posed by cyber hackers.
“We’ve seen reports in the last few days of even cabinet ministers’ passwords being for sale online,” he told broadcasters.
“We know that our public services are attacked so it’s not at all surprising that there should be an attempt to hack into parliamentary emails.”
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