Iran was responsible for a cyberattack on Parliament that hit dozens of MPs, including Theresa May, Whitehall sources have told The Daily Telegraph.

The unprecedented “brute force” cyber attack in June lasted more than 12 hours and compromised around 90 email accounts.

It was initially thought that Russia was behind the attack, but intelligence officials have now concluded Iran is responsible. It would be Tehran's first significant cyberattack on the UK.
In the attack, hackers repeatedly probed "weak" passwords of politicians and aides, forcing parliamentary officials to lock MPs out of their own email accounts as they scrambled to minimise the damage from the incident.
The network affected is used by every MP including the Prime Minister and her cabinet ministers for dealing with constituents. In total, 9,000 email accounts were affected.

Experts warned at the time that politicians could be exposed to blackmail or face a heightened threat of terrorist attack if emails were accessed.

The motive for the attack was not known, but experts have suggested that Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps could be using cyberwarfare to undermine the nuclear deal.

The powerful branch of the Iranian armed forces would like Tehran to resume its weapons programme.
The revelations come as Britain tried to keep the Iran nuclear deal on track after Donald Trump's refusal to back it.

The US president accused Tehran of violating the spirit of the landmark 2015 agreement and believes the international community is being naive in its dealings with the regime.

Mrs May joined Germany's Angela Merkel and France's Emmanuel Macron to issue a statement insisting preserving the pact was "in our shared national security interest" and calling for Washington to "consider the implications" of taking action that undermine it.

Mr Trump stopped short of ripping up the deal but said without measures to toughen it up "the agreement will be terminated".

The statement from the UK, France and Germany said the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) had "repeatedly confirmed" Iran's compliance to the terms it signed up to.

It said: "We, the leaders of France, Germany and the United Kingdom take note of President Trump's decision not to recertify Iran's compliance with the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPoA) to Congress and are concerned by the possible implications.

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