Email Accounts of many parliamentarians of Scotland were targeted by hackers very recently. And as per the sources reporting to Cybersecurity Insiders, the attack was similar to the one which took place on UK’s Westminster in June this year which compromised over 90 accounts of London’s renowned political leaders and their respective staff.
As a per, a press bulletin released a while ago, the attack launched by some unidentified hackers was a “Brute Force” attack which took place on IT systems in the dissolved assembly locking out some of the accounts of reputed parliamentarians.
But the good news is that the robust cyber security measures which were in place at the parliament helped to identify the attack in time at an early stage and helped in nullifying its effect on the regular operations of the IT systems.
Legislators and support staff have been advised to change their passwords with a combination of alphanumeric & special characters. A new security software allowing a 2-factor authentication was also set up in place.
Scottish Parliament’s Chief Executive Paul Grice said that the attack could have been a work of some state funded actors. Grice added that the law enforcement agencies are probing those behind the attack and are expected to come up with a report by this weekend.
From past couple of years, many media resources around the world are seen accusing the government of Russia for conducting espionage on other nations through cyber attacks. This includes United States, France, United Kingdom and Australia.
UK’s news resource ‘The Register’ suspects Russia as a nation behind the attack. And hopes that the probe launched by the Scottish government will bring some astonishing facts to light to cement its claim.
