The Foreign Office was targeted by a “serious cyber security incident” according to a recently released public tender document.
It is unclear what kind of incident targeted the department, nor is it evident who conducted the incident or what damage was caused.
The tender document reveals that BAE Applied Intelligence provided urgent business support to the department, receiving just over £467,000 for analysis the company provided to the government.
Explaining the urgent payment, the Foreign Office stated: “The Authority was the target of a serious cyber security incident, details of which cannot be disclosed.”
“In response to this incident, urgent support was required to support remediation and investigation,” the explanation of the payment explains.
“Due to the urgency and criticality of the work, the Authority was unable to comply with the time limits for the open or restricted procedures or competitive procedures with negotiation,” the document adds.
The contract to BAE concluded on 12 January according to the document, which does not state when the incident took place.
According to the document, which was first reported by online technology publication The Stack, BAE provided “business analyst and technical architect support to analyse an authority cyber security incident”.
This would indicate the company was brought in for consultancy services following a security breach or to recommend actions to address weaknesses that had been discovered in the Foreign Office’s networks, although it isn’t clear if the latter should be described as an incident.
An FCDO spokesperson said: “We do not comment on security but have systems in place to detect and defend against potential cyber incidents.”