The European Parliament has switched off a open Wi-Fi complement after an unknown hacker pennyless into a personal emails of several Members of a European Parliament (MEPs) from outward a building, regulating usually a laptop.
A notice posted online showed an email to staff confirming that some of them had been affected by the incident and that the public WiFi service would be turned off as a precautionary measure for the time being.
The private network of the European institution is thought to be secure but techies are advising users to avoid the public network following a possible man-in-the-middle attack that has allowed a (white-hat) hacker to capture an number of email passwords.
The Parliament has been subject for a man-in-the-middle attack, where a hacker has captured the communication between private smartphones and the public WiFi of the Parliament (EP-EXT Network).
Some individual mailboxes have been compromised. All concerned users have already been contacted and asked to change their password.
The Parliament has therefore decided to switch off the public WiFi network until further notice, and we invite you to contact the ITEC Service Desk [IT Desk] in order to install an EP software certificate on all the devices that you use to access the EP IT systems (email, etc).
Staff were also advised to change their passwords and to avoid using unknown public WiFi in other destinations such as train stations or airports.
The alert follows reports last week that the EU Parliament was investigating the reported vulnerability of MEPs’ personal email accounts. An ethical hacker hired by French investigative journal Mediapart was able to hack “personal and confidential emails of 14 randomly selected MEPs, parliamentary assistants and employees,” EurActiv reported at the time.
The incident underlines the growing issues affecting public WiFi services and the security risks they pose. Many high street stores are starting to offer free WiFi services in order to meet customers' needs and try to allow them to access more content about products on their devices.
A notice posted online showed an email to staff confirming that some of them had been affected by the incident and that the public WiFi service would be turned off as a precautionary measure for the time being.
The private network of the European institution is thought to be secure but techies are advising users to avoid the public network following a possible man-in-the-middle attack that has allowed a (white-hat) hacker to capture an number of email passwords.
The Parliament has been subject for a man-in-the-middle attack, where a hacker has captured the communication between private smartphones and the public WiFi of the Parliament (EP-EXT Network).
Some individual mailboxes have been compromised. All concerned users have already been contacted and asked to change their password.
The Parliament has therefore decided to switch off the public WiFi network until further notice, and we invite you to contact the ITEC Service Desk [IT Desk] in order to install an EP software certificate on all the devices that you use to access the EP IT systems (email, etc).
Staff were also advised to change their passwords and to avoid using unknown public WiFi in other destinations such as train stations or airports.
The alert follows reports last week that the EU Parliament was investigating the reported vulnerability of MEPs’ personal email accounts. An ethical hacker hired by French investigative journal Mediapart was able to hack “personal and confidential emails of 14 randomly selected MEPs, parliamentary assistants and employees,” EurActiv reported at the time.
The incident underlines the growing issues affecting public WiFi services and the security risks they pose. Many high street stores are starting to offer free WiFi services in order to meet customers' needs and try to allow them to access more content about products on their devices.
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