BREACH OF THE POLICE
Inside The Biggest Cyber Attack On The Met
Metropolitan police commissioner Sir Mark Rowley likes to blame people for the failures of his force and leadership, which is one year old this month and still in denial about the problem and how to fix it.
The same old Met was on parade over the late August Bank Holiday weekend when The Upsetter broke news of a ransom hack fiasco affecting the warrant cards and passes of 47,000 officers and staff.
Rowley’s response to his anxious and angry troops, who feared their personal and professional details were now in the hands of terrorists, organised crime or foreign agents, was to gag them from voicing their concern on social media and to journalists. Oops.
The Commissioner went on to blame the massive data breach on “austerity”, claiming that under his two predecessors - Baron Bernard Hogan-Howe (2011-2017) and Dame Cressida Dick (2017-2022) - the Met had outsourced too many contracts to private companies, such as the one now hacked with “ransomware”.
Alas, the facts don’t fit this Jackanory and instead reveal that concerns about the security of such sensitive data in the hands of private companies vulnerable to cyber-attack were not a priority under Rowley’s watch.
Truncheon Love
The August bank holiday is a busy time for the Met. London’s Caribbean community puts on the annual Notting Hill carnival, which draws officers from across the force to keep the peace amid the Red Stripe, sensimilla and sound system clashes.