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SECURITY AT LEINSTER House was beefed up this week ahead of the Dáil returning next week.
Visitors to the Dáil and Seanad must now go through airport-style screening, and must have photo ID such as a passport or driving licence with them.
Taoiseach Leo Varadkar is on the record as saying that security at the Dáil is far less stringent than other national parliaments.
Following the attack at Westminster in March where MPs were forced into lockdown at the House of Commons, as Khalid Masood drove a car into pedestrians on the pavement injuring more than 50 people, four fatally, Varadkar said everyone must be “cognisant” of what happened in London.
It is without a doubt that security going into Government Buildings and going into our parliament is much less than it would be visiting almost any other parliament that I have ever visited.
We have to be wise to the possibility that somebody could carry out an act of violence in our parliament – it might not necessarily be an armed terrorist – it could be anyone.
Of course there are hundreds of staff that work in the building also, so any reviews of security, taking into account what has happened in Westminster, would be very welcome.
There have been security breaches at Leinster House in the past. In 2014, a teenager used his great-grandfather’s sword from the 1916 Rising to stage a “one man rebellion” at Leinster House, according to The Irish Times.
He was later sentenced to 200 hours’ community service. In 2015, increased security measures were also introduced, with a scanning system installed, after a visitor to the House threatened a TD in the corridor.
However, with the heightened threat of terrorism in Europe, more robust measures came into effect this week.
It’s understood a security review of the premises was carried out, resulting in all visitors now having to walk through a metal detector and we will pass bags through an X-ray.
All visitors (other than those that hold a passcard) will have to bring photo ID, such as a passport or driving licence. Visitors must arrive at the Kildare Street gate 15 minutes before their appointment or tour, and people are asked to avoid bringing large bags.
“We hope not to inconvenience our visitors while we adjust to the new measures, and you can help by arriving in good time and leaving bulky bags at home,” it states on the website.
The security measures were approved by the Business Committee after a presentation on the new measures by the Captain of the Guard.
“I approved the measures,” Tipperary TD Mattie McGrath, also a member of the Business Committee, told TheJournal.ie.
“We can’t keep sticking our head in the sand, we have to brush up on security here. You never know what type of person might walk in and do something. It’s long overdue,” he said.
In recent weeks, threats against TDs sitting on the Committee on the Eighth Amendment have been highlighted in the media. With a contentious referendum on the issue due next year, McGrath (who sits on the committee and who is on the record as a pro-life TD) said some may well have concerns about their security as tensions rise.
“We have to be careful. You never know who would be after us,” he said.
Solidarity-PBP TD Ruth Coppinger, who also sits on the committee, said she has received threats against her, but is at pains to add that some reports have been exaggerated.
She doesn’t believe threats will become more prevalent, but said people need to remain vigilant.
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So, basically, the boards.ie administrator was a dunce.
Agreed, this was no hack the administrator of boards was negligent using the same password for two different services. It amazes me how lax people are with passwords, pet name year of birth etc.
Hey that’s victim blaming ……. Oh wait .. yeah it is a bit like leaving a BMW unlocked in Dolphins Barn with a laptop and Iphone in view and expecting nothing to happen.
That part of the report was taken from his submission which we couldn’t cross examine as he pleaded guilty. Its factually incorrect as the password was unique and not used on Twitter. It was also a strong password and we believe it was snatched during a “man-in-the-middle” attack.
Boards.ie/journal.ie are the same company, how much of this article can be taken at face value ?
I hope you were referring to the site administrator when you said Muppet!
Shocking lack of security on behalf of boards.ie really amateur stuff!
Or how about changing the headline to – Script Kiddy discovers gaping hole in Boards.ie security, boards thank him for identifying the hole and have since upgraded their security policy.
Companies pay kids like this to run penetration testing on their IT systems, having your IT admin use the same password on his twitter as for the server is a big facepalm.
Very surprised he didn’t go through a proxy for his hacking especially when he was a bit of a whizz kid.
Whizz kids usually use 7 proxies.
Yeah he’s a bit of a dope to get caught. Using his own ip address; scarlet for him.
How did such a security flaw cost boards.ie 30,000 Euro? All they had to do was delete the unauthorised file and change passwords. I’d say Boards.ie just exaggerated the claim to deck out their office and buy a couple of new servers, ipads, Macbooks etc
My password is my first name.
Boom?
Its factually incorrect to say the same password was used on Twitter. It wasn’t. The password was unique, it was also a strong password and we believe it was snatched during a “man-in-the-middle” attack.
OK buddy, we get you
Who are you trying to kid, Tom?
I remember having a few pints with you in town one night around that time, and I had a quick look at your phone when you were in the jacks*.
All of your passwords were the same. TomLuvsBords4Lyfe
*That chick who was pretending to be a journalist made me do it. She was hot, and I thought I had a chance.
Sorry for being the “Man-In-The-Middle”. :(
By the way, what year is that screenshot from?
When I look at the level of moderation on that site I am not surprised that the admins would be clueless. No surprises that this place is linked to them.
A bit OTT to extradite someone over something like this, no?
How is this hacking if you have the password ?
” Playing a game” They never change, do they? Kids will be kids!
I remember my first hacking back in 1983. I thought I was hacking into a video games company’s computer, to play all their unreleased games, but, it turned out, I was accidentally hacking into a NORAD supercomputer that was using games like chess as military simulators to calibrate how to react in a situation where the USA and the USSR began launching missiles, to spare as many lives as possible. I remember the designer, Dr Falken, used a backdoor password called “Joshua,” that the NORAD people weren’t aware of. I figured it out after doing some intense studying on the guy, and realised that was the name of his late son. So, me and a friend started playing this game on WOPR, that was the supercomputer’s name, called “Global Thermonuclear War,” and we started bombing cities like Las Vegas and Seattle, thinking we were playing a game, meanwhile, at NORAD, they thought the Russians were sending missiles their way. Long story short, after an arrest, an escape, a meeting with Dr Falken on his reclused island, we got back in time before the US responded to the phantom bombs, only for WOPR to try and overtake the system and figure out the code to send the missiles itself! So, we figured we’d let it play a game of tic-tac-toe, a game it couldn’t win or lose at, and it realised that there was no winning and decided not to play any more and decided not to set off the missiles.
God, those were the days!
I wonder who inserted my name into Irish waters database…. I didn’t…
My password is password.
How did he get the Twitter password? Was it hacked too?
I would imagine the sript kiddy used some kind of a widely known exploit to crack the password, if it cracked easy then it was unlikely very strong… provbably something like ‘ilikeboards’ or ‘boards123′
wysiwyg
Give that young man a job, he clearly knows more than others about IT security.
1Password enough said would end that problem in terms of using same password
It won’t take long for his next attempt and he won’t be caught.
He already works for the CIA.
A year suspended sentence is a bit harsh.
ok so how did he actually get Twitter password?
as by the sound of it he actually hacked Twitter not boards ie – he just logged onto boards.ie as proper user (admin)
Amateur. My password is passw0rd. They will never guess the o is a 0.
What’s with your quoting wysiwyg? And why should he get a job when his intentions are to falsify and steal from others? Any reason or answer?
Quoting wysiwyg was an example of “easy to guess” passwords. From reading that article, it suggests the site admin has used same/similar credentials for multiple accounts, which is extremely bad practice.
It states in the article that the hacker in this case didn’t divulge it share this information, instead the hack was to prove how easily it was in fact done.
The fact the hacker was only 17 at the time, probably had a bearing on a non custodial sentence.
Along a similar line, you’ll find AV vendors have actually hired people who wrote/spread malicious viruses, as they clearly have the ability to program and bypass security.
Hence my logic.
Give the lad a job, clearly he could seal up a few holes.
have your say