The website of the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS), the UK’s largest abortion provider, has seen a spike in hacking attempts following news that the original hacker was sent to prison last week.
Last week 27-year-old James Jeffrey was sentenced to two years and eight months in prison for accessing the BPAS website and stealing the personal details of around 10,000 people who had used the site.
Since his arrest there have been 2,500 attempts to attack the BPAS website and its systems, according to BBC News. None of the attacks were successful, the company claimed.
In a statement, the BPAS said: "This is significantly lower than anything we might have anticipated. There was no impact on our services and women’s records are completely secure."
The BBC says that most of the attacks originated in the US and Russia.
Jeffrey had threatened to release the hacked details online, but that never materialised. The firm said he had not accessed the details of women who had undergone terminations at the clinic, but did access a database that contained information of people who had requested information from the site.
He was arrested in March and apparently told police officers that he carried out the attack after his sister and a close friend underwent procedures with BPAS, a decision he disagreed with. Jeffrey had also claimed links to hacktivist group Anonymous.
The British Pregnancy Advisory Service had not responded to CBR’s request for comment at the time of publication.
