GCHQ of Britain has released a press statement on the last weekend saying that a brute force cyber attack launched on its parliament in June this year was carried out by the cyber army of Iran. The attack which led to email leaks of few high profile politicians, their peers, and the staff was caused due to a set-up of weak passwords. The list also includes email leaks of Theresa May.
Britain’s National Cyber Security Center (NCSC) estimates that 90 of the 9,000 email accounts were undermined in the sustained and determined attack. However, the security agency run by the government refused to provide further details as the inquiry was still underway.
Meanwhile, software giant Microsoft has issued a public statement saying that North Korea was behind the ransomware attack which was launched on NHS in May this year crippling the healthcare’s digital systems for two full weeks.
Probably its pure coincidence that both the revelations related to the cyber security of Britain were made within a time frame of just a few hours between each other respectfully.
NCSC has also alerted the companies operating in its region against more such cyber attacks which could be launched by state-funded actors of Russia, China or North Korea.
NOTE- In May this year, state-sponsored actors launched WannaCry Ransomware attack on more than 160 nations infecting more than 250,000 machines operating across the world. Readers of Cybersecurity Insiders have to notify that companies operating in the UK were the worst hit by the attack. NCSC in association with US CIA launched a probe on the issue and found that the attack was launched by North Korea.
