MP's website shut down in suspected cyber attack
54 minutes ago
Share
Save
Add as preferred on Google
Pritti Mistry
East Yorkshire and Lincolnshire
Getty Images
Sir David Davis said the suspected cyber attack was "a direct interference" with him "carrying out his duties"
Former Conservative cabinet minister Sir David Davis said his website had to be shut down after a suspected cyber attack.
The Goole and Pocklington MP told the House of Commons on Monday evening his website "was hit with 142 million requests, consuming nearly 800 gigabytes (GB) of data" and claimed much of the traffic was "traceable to China".
"Malicious links were inserted, redirecting users to South East Asian gambling websites – I guess it could be worse. We took it down immediately," he said.
At 09:30 BST on Tuesday, the website was still down with a message reading: "Briefly unavailable for scheduled maintenance. Check back in a minute."
The suspected cyber attack on Davis's Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority-backed (IPSA) website began on Thursday.
He told the Commons: "Last Thursday, my IPSA-provided website was compromised.
"Malicious links were inserted, redirecting users to South East Asian gambling websites – I guess it could be worse.
"We took it down immediately.
"It was restored but then came under sustained distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack, traceable to China.
"In just 24 hours, the site was hit with 142 million requests, consuming nearly 800GB of data.
"This is not a minor nuisance, it's a direct interference with a Member of Parliament carrying out his duties."
Distributed denial of service attacks work by flooding a website or online service with internet traffic in an attempt to throw it offline or make it inaccessible.
Deputy speaker Nus Ghani told MPs: "I do not think it would be appropriate to discuss the details publicly about preventative action and how members are supported to protect themselves against these kinds of cyber threats.
"If members would like security advice on how to make personal accounts and devices more resilient, they should contact PSD (Parliamentary Security Department).
"For matters related to parliamentary accounts and equipment, members should contact PDS through the PDS service desk."
Davis has been approached by the BBC for comment.
Listen to highlights from
Hull and East Yorkshire on BBC Sounds
, watch the
latest episode of Look North
.
Download the BBC News app from the
App Store
for iPhone and iPad or
Google Play
for Android devices
More on this story
UK Biobank health data listed for sale in China, government confirms
Anthropic investigating claim of unauthorised access to Mythos AI tool
Booking.com customers warned of 'reservation hijacking' after hack
Pocklington
David Davis
Cyber-attacks
Goole