The Labour Party is urgently investigating a cyber incident involving a data breach of its members.
The scope of the attack remains unclear but the party has informed the National Crime Agency (NCA), which is looking into the matter.
In a statement, Labour said: “On October 29, 2021, we were informed of a cyber incident by a third party that handles data on our behalf. The third party told us that the incident had resulted in a significant quantity of party data being rendered inaccessible on their systems.
“As soon as the party was notified of these matters, we engaged third-party experts and the incident was immediately reported to the relevant authorities, including the National Crime Agency (NCA), National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) and the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO).
“The party continues to work closely with each of these authorities. The party is also working closely and on an urgent basis with the third party in order to understand the full nature, circumstances and impact of the incident. The party’s own data systems were unaffected by this incident.”
The statement continued: “We understand that the data includes information provided to the party by its members, registered and affiliated supporters, and other individuals who have provided their information to the party.
“The full scope and impact of the incident is being urgently investigated.”
A spokesperson for the NCA confirmed it was looking into the incident.
“The NCA is leading the criminal investigation into a cyber incident impacting on the Labour party. We are working closely with partners to mitigate any potential risk and assess the nature of this incident.”
This is not the first time the Labour Party has suffered a cyber-attack.
During the 2019 general election the party was victim to two denial of service (DDoS) attacks which flooded its servers with requests to overwhelm it.