Royal Navy website suspended after attack

The Royal Navy’s website has had to be taken offline following an attack by a Romanian hacker.

Although visitors to the website will currently only see a static image, it is believed that the hacker known as TinKode managed to post sensitive information on the internet before the attack was discovered.

This data included user names and administrator passwords.

The attack is embarrassing for the Ministry of Defence (MoD) and Government. Only last month the Government released its latest National Security Strategy plans; which outlined that defending against cyber attacks is among the “highest” priorities for the UK.

Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at security company Sophos said: "The MoD is lucky that on this occasion, those behind the hack have been motivated more by mischief than malice.

"With luck this security breach is more of an embarrassment to the Ministry of Defence than a more significant assault on a website presenting the public face of an important part of the armed forces.

“The Royal Navy could have found itself in a far more sinister situation if hackers had chosen to embed spyware onto the website and infected visitors' computers to steal classified information."

A Royal Navy Spokesperson said: “We can confirm that there was a compromise of the Royal Navy public-relations inter-net website over the weekend.

"There has been no malicious damage; but as a precaution, the RN website has been temporarily suspended. Security teams are investigating. Access to this website did not give the hacker access to any classified information”.

Visitors to the RN website will see a message: "Unfortunately the Royal Navy website is currently undergoing essential maintenance. Please visit again soon. "

More information about the attack can be found on Sophos' Naked Security blog