It has been becoming increasingly clear with every passing day that nothing on the internet seems to be secure. Paranoia continues to rise as high profile cyberattacks are on the rise. Hospitals being taken down by ransomwares, Hillary Clinton’s e-mails, Donald Trump’s smartphone security issues, it is all adding on to this ever increasing paranoia. The latest victim of a high profile cyberattack has been the British Parliament.
Reports from The Telegraph indicate that the British Parliament has been hit by a ‘sustained and determine’ cyberattack. This attack has rendered the Parliamentarians unable to access their e-mails. This attack came to light when the British authorities detected an unusual activity on their networks earlier today. Since the discovery of this attack, quick steps are being taken to ensure protection.
These quick steps include preventing the access of these mails outside the Palace of Westminster. The British Parliament authorities have sent out an e-mail to these lawmakers which states that “confirmed that hackers were carrying out a sustained and determined attack on all parliamentary user accounts in an attempt to identify weak passwords.”
This raises an even bigger question. If the British Parliament is itself not safe to cyber attack, how safe are the citizens? With investigations of Russian hacks showing account information of tens of thousands of government officials found to be hacked, there was an impending sense of doom. A commons spokesperson says the investigation is ongoing, and that they will continue to “ further measures to secure the computer network, liaising with the National Cyber Security Centre.”
Cybersecurity is something that everyone needs to be more aware of. While government data is often the agenda of high-level security breaches, the regular users are more worried about ransomware attacks, which are also getting common these days. Stay safe! We will update you with more news on the British Parliament cyberattack as new information comes out.
