Hackers penetrate police email accounts

Hackers accessed email accounts of about 40 members Sweden’s police force who had the accounts hosted by the Swedish Association of Computer Professionals (Dataföreningen).

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Police don’t believe the hackers acquired any information that would allow them to access any internal police records.

The Association of Computer Professionals had its server hacked and information regarding members and email accounts was spread on an internet forum.

The association has 27,000 members, many of whom are employed in the IT-branch, including police department employees.

“I assume that police employees have been abiding by existing regulations,” said police spokesperson Varg Gyllander.

While a large amount of information was leaked as a result of the hack, police are not worried that their systems are in jeopardy.

“You can never say never, but no one currently believes that they’ve accessed our systems,” said Anders Ahlqvist, deputy head of IT-crimes with the Swedish police.

According to the Aftonbladet newspaper the hackers have been reading police email for years.

“They’ve likely been secretly reading personal email on the association’s server and that has nothing to do with our system,” said Ahlqvist.

The employees who had their accounts hacked have been informed of the breach, but the police have no plans to implement further security measures.

“It’s the Association of Computer Professionals that was hacked, not the police,” said Ahlqvist.