Email hacking is sadly so commonplace that it takes a lot to perk my interest these days. Gmail investing in new security measures will do it, as will the latest highly-sophisticated attack methodologies. Otherwise, meh. Unless that is, U.K. Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer is at the center of the story, especially when it has been reported that the simplest of protections appears to have been missing from the email security arsenal. Here’s what you need to know.
Russian Hackers Accused Of Compromising An Email Account Belonging To Sir Kier Starmer
The U.K. Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer, has been reported to have been warned by security services that his personal email account had been compromised by suspected Russian threat actors before he took office. According to The Times, which is serializing a book recounting Starmer’s rise to power, the then “Labour leader in opposition, was told that his email account may have been compromised in a sophisticated campaign by Kremlin-linked hackers.” It was further reported that his head of office at the time, Jill Cuthbertson, distributed a notification without any further explanation, instructing all staff “not to email Starmer under any circumstances.”
Britain’s National Cyber Security Centre been encouraging the use of two-factor authentication some years before the security incident. “It is not clear why the then-leader of the opposition had failed to implement it beforehand,” Alexander Martin, U.K. Editor for Recorded Future News, said, and neither the NCSC nor the U.K. Cabinet Office responded to a request for comment.
It is understood that as a result of the alleged compromise, Starmer then changed his personal email address and activated two-factor authentication to protect the new account.
The Email Hacking Threat Doesn’t Only Impact World Leaders
Although it is shocking to hear of a world leader having their email account hacked, albeit when they were the leader of the opposition rather than Prime Minister, as in this case, don’t think for a second that email compromise is something that won’t affect you. A new report has revealed that hackers can create highly sophisticated AI-powered email attacks in as little as 10 minutes and at a cost of just $5. Attacks that, security vendor McAfee warned, “aren’t just celebrity face-swaps or entertaining memes; they’re sophisticated scams designed to separate people from their money.”