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U.K. House under cyber attack

Peter Warren

London: As they packed their briefcases for the Christmas break, MPs in the Westminster Parliament in London were unaware they had been the targets of one of the most audacious hacking attempts ever mounted, as the world's oldest modern democracy came under a sustained attack aimed at stealing sensitive information. It was launched by cyber criminals operating from the world's next superpower, China.

The hi-tech industrial espionage involved a series of innocuous-looking emails targeted at secretaries, researchers, parliamentary staff and even MPs themselves.

Once opened, these emails tried to download sophisticated spyware that hunts through the recipient's computer and network for valuable documents, which would be automatically sent back to the hackers without the user's knowledge. Fortunately, the attack, which took place earlier in 2005, was thwarted by Parliament's sophisticated Internet security system.

The House of Commons' IT security staff immediately alerted the U.K.'s National Infrastructure Security Co-ordination Centre (NISCC), a powerful organisation linked to British counter-intelligence (MI5) that is responsible for protecting the U.K.'s critical information systems. Security experts set up an exercise to monitor the attacks, and immediately realised the hackers were well resourced.

British and U.S. security experts believe the hackers are working with the tacit approval of authorities in China and are attempting to acquire Western technology in a massive hit and run raid on the world's intellectual property.

A spokesman for the Chinese Government said: ``If there are such allegations then it is subject to further investigation.''

Britain is not the only country targeted. Key parts of the U.S. have been targeted by far eastern hackers for up to five years. Some of the attacks have been traced to just 20 workstations and three routers in China.

``Whoever is doing this is well-funded,'' said Dr Andrew Blyth, head of computer forensics at Glamorgan University.

- Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006

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