back to back cyber attacks on uk political parties by hackers

On Tuesday, back to back cyber-attacks on political parties in the UK. Forcing political websites to go offline with a flood of malicious traffic just weeks ahead of a national election. . The attacks come after Britain's security agencies have warned that Russia and other countries may attempt to disrupt the December 12 vote with cyber-attacks or divisive political messages on social media, a charge Moscow denies. The opposition Labour Party said on Tuesday morning it had "experienced a sophisticated and large-scale cyber-attack on Labour digital platforms," but that the attack was repelled and no data was compromised.

Few hours later the party websites and other online services face the second attack, following the third on the website of the governing Conservative Party shortly before 1600 GMT, according to two people with knowledge of the matter and documents were seen by Reuters.

The sources said there was currently nothing to link the attacks on either party to a foreign state.

One of sources said the attack on the Conservatives was larger and appeared to be conducted by different hackers, but did not take down any party websites.

Asked about the second attack, a Labour spokesman said: "We have ongoing security processes in place to protect our platforms, so users maybe experiencing some differences. We are dealing with this quickly and efficiently."

A Conservative Party spokeswoman had no immediate comment and said she was unaware of the attack.

Digital assault
according to The country's National Cyber Security Center, part of the GCHQ signals intelligence agency said that the first attacks were disrupted denial-of-service (DDoS) attack. This is a technique that is used by hackers to take them down by overwhelming them with traffic.

The sources said the same technique had been used in the subsequent attacks against Labour and the Conservatives

"DDoS attacks are a common form of attack used by a very wide range of attackers. Mitigation techniques are available and worked in this case," an NCSC spokesman said.

The nature of such attacks often makes it difficult to attribute responsibility to any particular group, he said.

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said the first attack on his party was successfully repelled by the party's defence systems when the digital assault began on Monday.

"But if this is a sign of things to come in this election, I feel very nervous about it all," he said. "Because a cyber-attack against a political party in an election is suspicious and something one is very worried about."