Scottish parliament attacked by cyber hackers

In a new move, hackers have reportedly targeted a cyber attack on the Scottish parliament using a brute force technique. The report comes through the BBC, who confirmed the same from the parliament officials.

Chief executive Sir Paul Grice stated that the attack was from an external source and was similar to the one that affected the Westminister in June earlier this year. He also confirmed that attack in a message to MSPs and staff with parliamentary email addresses urging them to be more vigilant, reported BBC.

‘Scottish NHS boards were also affected by a cyber-attack in May, leading to several discussions of cyber security at Holyrood,’ the reported added.

Brute force attack is when hackers repeatedly try to gain access to systems using a range of different passwords, in a hope to effectively guessing the correct password using a trial and error pattern. The email from Mr Grice urged the MSPs and staff to secure their passwords, and the parliament’s IT team will force a change to weaker passwords as an additional measure.

His email states that the parliament’s monitoring systems identified that they were currently subject to a brute force attack from an external source. The parliament’s cyber security systems identified the attacks at an early stage and their security measures were put in place for such situations. He confirmed that the IT systems remain fully operational.