Russian hackers reportedly breach email accounts of British government officials and overseas Foreign Office staff

Russian hackers have successfully infiltrated the email accounts of British government officials and overseas Foreign Office staff in what authorities are treating as a major national security breach according to reports.

The ongoing attack, nicknamed "FortiBleed" by cybersecurity researchers, has led to the theft of critical login credentials belonging to government personnel. The intrusion has triggered high-level security alarms across Whitehall.

According to reports, the cyber espionage campaign targeted hardware managed by a global cybersecurity provider; and the hackers reportedly exploited a specific vulnerability to compromise more than 80,000 firewalls globally.

The attackers also reportedly used previously stolen data to breach security perimeters. These perimeters were explicitly designed to safeguard the UK's most critical national infrastructure. Accordingly to reports, the hackers quietly gathered usernames and passwords belonging to local government officials and overseas foreign office staff.