Members’ data affected in Labour ‘cyber incident’

The Labour Party has said that it has been hit by a ‘cyber incident’ that meant that a ‘significant quantity’ of members’ and supporters’ data became inaccessible.

The impact of the incident is not yet known, but the party has said that  it was urgently investigating whether the data had been hacked. Police, cyber security specialists and regulators have been notified.

A spokesperson for the National Cyber Security Centre said that ‘the NCSC is committed to helping organisations manage their cyber security’, and is working with the party in response.

It is not clear whether the party was specifically targeted, as opposed to merely being incidentally affected, but experts have suggested that it appears to have the hallmarks of a ransomware attack, where hackers, often from Russia, demand money to restore access to data that has been seized and encrypted.

Labour said the data affected ‘includes information provided to the party by its members, registered and affiliated supporters, and other individuals who have provided their information’. Labour has about 430,000 members.