Written question asked by David Jones (Conservative) on Wednesday, 6 December 2006, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Monday, 11 December 2006. It was answered by Baroness Primarolo (Labour) on Monday, 8 January 2007 on behalf of the Treasury.

HM Revenue and Customs

Question: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer how many attempts to gain unauthorised access to the computer systems of HM Revenue and Customs (a) were detected and (b) succeeded in each of the last five years.

Answer: HMRC has detected no successful attempts to gain unauthorised external access to its computer systems in each of the last five years.Although HMRC actively monitors and protects its systems, the Department does not routinely record unsuccessful attempts to gain unauthorised access, because the high volume of relatively simplistic Internet-based approaches to which any web-connected system is subjected means the gathering of this data is of negligible benefit.

Secondary information