Hack prompts European Parliament to shut down public Wi-Fi

 The European Parliament has shut down its public wireless network following the detection of a man-in-the-middle attack that could snoop on communications from smartphones and tablets.

The organisation posted a note online detailing how the parliament had been subjected to the attack. It said some individual’s inboxes had been compromised and all affected users have already been contacted and asked to change their passwords.

“As a precaution, the Parliament has therefore decided to switch off the public Wi-Fi network until further notice, and we invite you to contact the ITEC Service Desk [IT Desk] in order to install an EP software certificate on all the devices that you use to access the EP IT systems (email, etc),” the note read.