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 Geoffrey Hoon (Labour) on Tuesday, 12 December 2006 on behalf of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

Departmental Computer Data

Question: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs how many attempts to gain unauthorised access to her Department's computer systems have (a) been detected and (b) been successful in each of the last five years.

Answer

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) has robust and sophisticated protection against attempts at unauthorised access. We do not record the numerous attempted and thwarted attacks against our network. However, the information in respect of successful attacks is as follows:

	Number
2002	0
2003	0
2004	0
2005	1
2006	0

In 2005 the attack on the FCO website resulted in pages being defaced. Since then the security counter-measures have been improved in an attempt to prevent similar attacks in the future.

Secondary information

Type: Written question
Reference: 108322; 454 c989W;454 c993W
Session: 2006-07
Subjects: Foreign and Commonwealth Office Hacking
Link: View this Written question on www.publications.parliament.uk

Departmental Computer Data

Secondary information

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