LONDON (AP) — British officials are investigating a cyberattack on the country’s Parliament after discovering “unauthorized attempts to access parliamentary user accounts.”

A spokeswoman for the House of Commons said Saturday that officials are working with the National Cyber Security Center to secure the computer network. She said: "We have discovered unauthorised attempts to access accounts of parliamentary networks users...

"Parliament has robust measures in place to protect all of our accounts and systems, and we are taking the necessary steps to protect and secure our network. "As a result, some Members of Parliament (lawmakers) and staff cannot access their email accounts outside of Westminster," it said, adding that IT services at Parliament itself are working normally. The latest attack was publicly revealed by Liberal Democrat peer Lord Rennard on Twitter as he asked his followers to send any "urgent messages" to him by text. Henry Smith, Tory MP for Crawley, later tweeted: "Sorry no parliamentary email access today - we're under cyber attack from Kim Jong Un, (Vladimir) Putin or a kid in his mom's basement or something..."

The government's National Security Strategy said in 2015 that the threat from cyber-attacks from both organised crime and foreign intelligence agencies was one of the "most significant risks to UK interests".
Police in the United Kingdom are investigating a cyberattack on the Houses of Parliament after an attempt was made to gain unauthorised access to politicians' email accounts.