‘Brits suspect Iran of hacking parliament e-mail traffic’

British intelligence services suspect that Iran is behind a major hack that paralyzed parliament’s e-mail traffic, a British newspaper reported. Iranian hackers are said to target about 9,000 email accounts.

That reports the British newspaper The Times on the basis of an investigation by the intelligence services. Incidentally, the intelligence services themselves have not publicly disclosed anything about this. The hack is said to have taken place last summer and mainly targeted the e-mail accounts of parliamentarians. Although about 9,000 email accounts were attacked in total, only a small portion of them were actually accessed by the hackers. The e-mail accounts of British Prime Minister Theresa May were among the targets.

Initially, the attack would have been attributed to Russia by British intelligence, but further investigations would indicate that Iranian state hackers made the break-in attempts, according to The Times. It is reportedly the first attack by Iranian state hackers on British government systems. Sensitive material would also have been stolen during the hack, although it is still unclear what it would be about.

In recent years, state hackers from several countries have become increasingly active. Western countries are regularly targeted by attacks from Russia and China, but hacking attacks are also carried out the other way around, including an alleged recent attack by the United States on North Korea.