Question

To ask His Majesty's Government, in light of the number of government websites compromised on 22 October, whether they have reviewed their security advice to the public on matters including the storage of credit card details and, in particular, card verification codes on supplier systems.

As I updated the House on 22 October, the issue concerned precautionary action taken in response to a critical vulnerability affecting PHP, a widely used web technology. Some public-facing services were temporarily taken offline while mitigations and updates were applied. There have been no reported compromises of government websites resulting from this vulnerability. The Government keeps its cyber security guidance under continual review, and organisations handling payment card data are also expected to comply with established industry requirements for protecting that information.