British ministers 'hackable' in twenty minutes

Twenty minutes is the time it would take for a hacker to recover sensitive data from British ministries (illustration).

AP - Vahid Salemi

Text by: RFI Follow

1 min

The British government warns: its ministers are at risk of hacking sensitive or confidential data.

It is a whistleblower who warns ministers at the start of the year.

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With our correspondent in London,

Twenty minutes is the time it would take for a hacker to recover sensitive data from British ministries, according to Richard de Vere, an "ethical hacker", who identifies and informs companies and individuals of their vulnerabilities in cybersecurity

If the British government is so vulnerable, it is because of the accessibility of a lot of information on the internet, in particular the identity and contact details of ministerial employees.

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Abuse their trust

Thus, a directory of 45,000 civil servants, with name, social networks and sometimes telephone, remained online until 2020 and could easily have been saved.

On this list, employees of the Ministry of Defense or officials of the civil service.

With this data, hackers, also known as "social engineers", can very easily pose as collaborators with ministers and abuse their trust in order to recover sensitive information, or even break into their phone.

This new alert comes a few months after the publication of a potential hacking of the devices of Liz Truss by Russian agents, when she was Minister of Foreign Affairs.

Information never confirmed or denied by the government.

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• UK

• Cybercriminality

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