International Criminal Court discloses hack

The International Criminal Court has said its systems were breached in a cyberattack last week.

The nature and extent of the breach has not been disclosed.

"At the end of last week, the International Criminal Court's services detected anomalous activity affecting its information systems," an ICC spokesperson said in a statement, shared on Twitter.

"Immediate measures were adopted to respond to this cybersecurity incident and to mitigate its impact."

The Dutch National Cyber Security Centre is reported to be assisting with an investigation into the matter.

Based in The Hague, Netherlands, the ICC investigates crimes of concern to the international community including genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity and the crime of aggression. Its remit has made it the frequent target of political attacks.

Currently, the court is investigating 17 cases in 18 countries, and in March issued an arrest warrant for Russian president Vladimir Putin and and Maria Alekseyevna Lvova-Belova, Russian commissioner for children's rights, for unlawful deportation of children from Ukraine. Other prominent cases include the current trial on war crimes charges of Malian Islamist fighter Al Hassan Ag Abdoul Aziz.

Last month Karim Khan KC, Prosecutor at the ICC wrote that the Court is looking to prosecute operations in cyberspace, which he said are increasingly used to carry out or facilitate war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide, and aggression of one state against another, adding they "potentially fulfil the elements of many core international crimes as already defined."