‘Cyber attack’ targets Foreign Office staff

Saturday 05 February 2011 01:59 GMT
Comments

A "hostile state intelligence agency" launched a cyber attack on the Foreign Office within the last month, Foreign Secretary William Hague revealed at a security conference yesterday. He stopped short of identifying the origin of the attack, but it is thought to be China.

Mr Hague said an email had been sent to three Foreign Office staff members purporting to be from a colleague and "looked quite innocent". He told the conference in Munich: "It was from a hostile state intelligence agency and contained computer code embedded in the attached document that would have attacked their machine."

Cyber-defence systems neutralised the email before it reached the officials. "These are the kinds of threat we are now facing every day," Mr Hague said.

He also cited an attack on a UK defence contractor in December which was designed to steal secrets.

Join our commenting forum

Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies

Comments

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in