Labour Faced Second Cyber-Attack

The Labour party confirmed it had suffered a “sophisticated and large-scale” cyber attack on Monday, with a second hit following on Tuesday afternoon. Hackers attempted to disrupt its digital systems, highlighting concerns that the upcoming general election could be vulnerable to cyber interference.

Jeremy Corbyn described the first incident as “very serious” and admitted the timing of the attack made him “nervous”.
 Speaking at a campaign event in Blackpool, the Labour leader said: ”We have a system in place in our office to protect us against these cyberattacks, but it was a very serious attack against us,” he said.
“So far as we’re aware, none of our information was downloaded and the attack was actually repulsed because we have an effective in-house developed system by people within our party”.
 “But if this is a sign of things to come in this election, I feel very nervous about it all because a cyberattack against a political party in an election is suspicious, something one is very worried about.”
 Both incidents are understood to be “distributed denial-of-service” (DDoS) attacks, where a network of computers is used to flood the target with requests, overwhelming its server and slowing it down or causing it to crash.
 A National Cyber Security Centre spokesman said the Labour Party followed the correct procedure and notified them swiftly of Monday’s cyber-attack, adding: “The attack was not successful and the incident is now closed.”
One report says a third attack on the website of the Conservative Party had also taken place on Tuesday afternoon. However, there was currently nothing to link the attacks on either party to a foreign state.
A Conservative Party spokeswoman had no immediate comment and said she was unaware of the attack.
 The Information Commissioner’s Office told, “We will not be commenting publicly on every issue raised during the general election.
“We will, however, be closely monitoring how personal data is being used during political campaigning and making sure that all parties and campaigns are aware of their responsibilities.”