Government security chiefs left red-faced by hack attack

The former Northern Ireland Secretary Peter Hain is understood to have been warned by an officer from the Metropolitan Police that his computer may have been hacked, raising concerns about the security government provides for senior officials.

The Northen Ireland post is one of the most sensitive in government and the post-holder frequently deals with classified and top secret material.

But according to the Guardian newspaper, hackers were able to infect Hain's computer after sending an email containing malware.

The breach represents a “worrying" failure in government IT, where the public had come to expect iron-clad security to be in place, said Rik Ferguson, a security researcher at Trend Micro.

While few of the technical details regarding the attack have emerged, it does not paint government security in a good light, added Ferguson.

“You wouldn't come to the conclusion that they had industry-grade security protecting their end points,” he said.

Details of the attack will cause huge embarrassment within Whitehall, where there is an overwhelming urge to talk up the strengths of the UK government's IT security.

In late October 2011, the director of government GCHQ's listening centre, Ian Lobban, had warned of the growing threat to government cyber security from criminals and hostile governments.

And earlier in the year, Foreign Secretary William Hague told a security conference in Munich that the UK had successfully repelled a cyber attack from a hostile state intelligence agency.

Hain's office declined to comment as the matter related to an on-going police investigation.