Hackers target British Pregnancy Advisory Service site

Copycat hackers around the world have targeted Britain's biggest abortion provider since a computer expert was arrested for breaking into the charity's website.

James Jeffery, 27, was jailed for two years and eight months last week for stealing about 10,000 personal records of women held by the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS).

Since his arrest on March 9, there have been 2,500 attempts to hack into BPAS's systems, with around a third traced to computers in North America and a third to Russia.

BPAS said they were "low-level" attacks which caused no significant disruption, and stressed that the medical records of women who have had terminations were never at risk.

A spokeswoman for the abortion provider, which treats around 55,000 people a year, played down the significance of the number of attempts because some hackers are likely to have launched hundreds of attacks within the space of a few minutes.

"This is significantly lower than anything we might have anticipated. There was no impact on our services and women's records are completely secure," she said.

Jeffery, of Wednesbury in the West Midlands, targeted BPAS because he disagreed with the decisions of two women he knew to terminate their pregnancies, London's Southwark Crown Court was told.

As well as stealing the records, which he later intended to publish, he also defaced the website's homepage with an anti-abortion message.

PA