Russia a chief suspect in UK parliament cyberattack

LONDON, United Kingdom — Russia is suspected of being behind a “sustained and determined” cyberattack at Britain’s parliament that breached some 90 email accounts over the weekend.

“It was a brute force attack. It appears to have been state-sponsored,” a security source told the UK’s Guardian newspaper on Monday, adding that “the nature of cyberattacks means it is notoriously difficult to attribute an incident to a specific actor.”

The paper reported that MPs contacted said chief suspects were Russia and North Korea, who are believed to have been behind previous cyber breaches.

Parliament shut down external access to email accounts on Saturday as it battled what officials called a “sustained and determined” attack.

The threat followed reports in British media, including the Times, that hackers were selling passwords for MPs online.

The National Crime Agency said it was investigating “a possible cyber incident affecting parliament”, which raised fears of blackmail threats against some of the 9,000 parliamentary email account holders.

“Investigations are ongoing, but it has become clear that significantly fewer than one percent of the 9,000 accounts on the parliamentary network have been compromised,” the parliamentary spokesman told the Press Association.

“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,” he added.

A House of Commons spokeswoman said that “the Houses of Parliament have discovered unauthorized attempts to access parliamentary user accounts.

“We have systems in place to protect member and staff accounts and are taking the necessary steps to protect our systems.”

“Parliament has disabled remote access to protect the network,” she said..

Liberal Democrat lawmaker Chris Rennard tweeted that there was a “cyber security attack on Westminster; Parliamentary emails may not work remotely.”

International Trade Minister Liam Fox told ITV News said it was a “warning to everyone we need more security and better passwords.”

Fox told the BBC: “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”.

A global ransomware attack last month hit hundreds of thousands of computers, including hospitals in Britain that were forced to shut down, divert emergency cases and postpone operations.

The so-called WannaCry ransomware locked access to user files and in an on-screen message demanded payment of $300 (275 euros) in the virtual currency Bitcoin in order to decrypt the files.