UPDATE 1-UK Labour Party targeted in large-scale cyber attack ahead of election


Reuters | London | Updated: 12-11-2019 16:07 IST | Created: 12-11-2019 16:03 IST
UPDATE 1-UK Labour Party targeted in large-scale cyber attack ahead of election
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Britain's opposition Labour Party said on Tuesday it was subject to a large-scale cyberattack on its digital platforms but that it was confident no data breach occurred just weeks before a national election.

A spokesman for the party said Labour had reported the attack to the National Cyber Security Centre and that while the attack had "slowed down some of our campaign activities", they had been restored earlier on Tuesday. Britain's security services have warned about the risk of cyber-attacks by Russia and other countries, including during elections, when both the country's main parties launch online campaigns to target their messages to the voting public.

"We have experienced a sophisticated and large scale cyber attack on Labour digital platforms," the spokesman said in a statement. "We took swift action and these attempts failed due to our robust security systems. The integrity of all our platforms was maintained and we are confident that no data breach occurred."

Britain’s National Cyber Security Centre, part of the country's GCHQ signals intelligence agency, was not immediately available for comment. Britain goes to the polls on Dec. 12 in an election called by Prime Minister Boris Johnson to try to break the Brexit deadlock in parliament, more than three years since the country voted to leave the European Union.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

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