‘Journalists hacked UK government’ – police investigate evidence

UK police have warned a former British Cabinet minister that they are investigating evidence that his computer was hacked by private detectives working for Rupert Murdoch’s News International organisation and the disgraced “News of the World” newspaper.

Peter Hain, who served as Secretary of State for Northern Ireland between 2005-2007, has been told by Scotland Yard that computers belonging to him, containing sensitive intelligence material, may have been compromised.

The investigation, which raises questions of national security, is also exploring evidence that computers belonging to other senior Northern Ireland civil servants and intelligence agents were also hacked.

According to a report in The Guardian newspaper, Hain will be asked to confirm that classified material obtained by police investigators came from his PC.

Yesterday,…

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Graham Cluley •   @gcluley

Graham Cluley is a veteran of the anti-virus industry having worked for a number of security companies since the early 1990s when he wrote the first ever version of Dr Solomon's Anti-Virus Toolkit for Windows. Now an independent security analyst, he regularly makes media appearances and is an international public speaker on the topic of computer security, hackers, and online privacy. Follow him on Twitter at @gcluley, on Mastodon at @[email protected], or drop him an email.