WTF! Their databases are Internet Accessible????

To be attacked they have to be accessible. Does this mean they've connected their databases to accessible networks? Presumably the Internet?

"The databases used by police also contain untold sensitive and valuable personal information about suspects, witnesses and victims."

No wonder they'd want to keep quiet about it. Please tell me they don't have their computers on public networks, or that they're just talking up a virus they got on an unpatched Windows box as though its a cyber attack on them personally.

Alternatively ....

Police IT security is so bad that it's wide open to attacks from sources who the cops are unable to identify, let alone catch. They "big up" the scale and seriousness of these intrusions to shift the blame away from their own parlous computer implementations.

While they are focussed (obsessed?) with physical security: high walls with razor wire tops, gates and barriers and bang-up cells to hold the baddies, they seem to have forgotten that security needs have shifted in the past 30 years. Maybe they don't understand computers or simply don't think IT security is important - even though they are totally dependent on their IT systems to function. More importantly, they have a duty of care to keep safe all the fingerprints, DNA and personal information they extract from the public on the flimsiest pretence.

Of course it could just be incompetent sysadmins using the excuse of "they're out to get us" to cover up for their own screw ups.

So, how do they mean this then?

``Something happened five times, but we can't tell what, or where, or what it means, but rest assured it was really really bad.'' Perhaps there were even ninja pirate zombie terrorists involved! Wielding plastic bottles of exploding water! In both hands! On the internet! Obviously this means we need More Laws to combat this Nebulous Threat!

Actually, I'm inclined to add ``and the police haven't a clue so they certainly can't even begin to secure their own systems better but decline to admit it.'' That puts the buck squarely back in their own yard.

How many commentators does it take....

Before some readers realise that the attacks did not and could not hit central Police systems. Lots of Government web sites at local and national level are vulnerable to the same attacks as any other web site.

The people who implement these systems take security very seriously, and to hack the PNC from the internet would take a hell of a lot of effort, and would certainly be beyond the capability of even the most sophisticated criminal gang, if it is possible at all, as it's on a private network.

A lot of government systems sit on private networks and external access is never direct to the internet.