The 2017 Westminster data breach occurred on 23 June 2017, when an unauthorised attempt was made to gain access to email accounts belonging to a number of politicians at the United Kingdom's Houses of Parliament.
[2] The incident was followed by an attempt to hack accounts belonging to politicians at the Scottish Parliament in August 2017.
Parliamentarians were told about the cyberattack on the evening of 23 June, and it was made public knowledge the following day by Chris Rennard, a Liberal Democrat member of the House of Lords who posted a request on social media asking people needing to contact him urgently to do so via text message.
[3] Westminster authorities described the attack as "sustained and determined", and follows media reports that the email passwords of government ministers had been obtained by hackers and were being sold online.
[6] On 15 August, officials at Holyrood, home of the Scottish Parliament warned that accounts belonging to Members of the Scottish Parliament (MSPs) were currently the subject of a Brute-force attack which was attempting to crack weak passwords, but that no accounts had been compromised.