Was ‘Brexit' hacked?

The shadow of Russian intelligence has also reached Brexit. A voter registration website for the EU referendum of June 23 may have been attacked by foreign hackers, according to concerns raised by a parliamentary committee which were made public yesterday.

The website collapsed two weeks before the referendum, shortly before the deadline for citizens to register their data ahead of the consultation. At the time, the government put the failure of the website down to a sudden and massive influx of users as a result of a major televised debate on the permanence or not the UK in the EU that was thought to have revived interest in the vote.

Although there is no clear evidence that it was a hacker attack, the members of the Committee of Public Administration of the House of Commons do not rule out that the portal was the target of a hacker attack by unspecified foreigners of unknown origin.

However, the committee does not believe that such interference may have had any bearing on the outcome of the referendum, as following the collapse of the website, the then Prime Minister David Cameron extended the deadline for registration.

These revelations follow the controversy over alleged Russian cyber interference during the US presidential campaign. The parliamentary committee, which has asked the government to strengthen computer security for future voting has also criticised Cameron for the lack of a plan of action in case of a victory favouring Brexit and questioned the motives which lead the conservative Prime Minister to call a referendum in the first place.