Labour Party secures VPN from hackers

The Labour Party beefed up its communications infrastructure in the run up to this year's general election, in order to keep vital communications from party workers secure on the move.

During the run up to the election, 250 Labour Party staffers who were out campaigning around the country were able to remotely access email and files from headquarters.

Labour upgraded Whale's e-Gap Remote Access SSL virtual private network software in April, one month before the election. The tool enables secure web-based access to internal applications and files from any browser.

The party also issued two-factor authentication key-rings to staff and increased the user licence agreement from 100 to 250 people.

Sean Robinson, Lotus Notes system manager for the Labour Party, told silicon.com: "It was put in because we have a need for remote access at conferences. This helped us get remote access back to the network. The system got most used in our short campaign where staff increased dramatically and satellite offices popped up everywhere.

"During the campaign, all 250 were in use but at the moment though we've got about 50 to 60 people."

Initially, the Labour IT team carried out a one-month pilot, with 30 users, which proved successful enough that access was granted to 100 people.

The pilot service went live in time for the Labour Party Spring Conference in Newcastle in February.

Robinson added: "The reason they went for the Whale solution was because it has a strong sense of security. People like me can have a great deal of confidence that others can't hack the system."

The IT department issued security company RSA's Secure ID tags, which display a unique pass number that changes periodically. This means only the person with a username and a password, and who holds the tag, can log into the system.

One of the hidden benefits of the VPN, he said, has allowed the IT team to administrate computers remotely: "I can administrate by remote control any part of the network from home. I can control any mail servers, from there. And from the users' point of view, it's just hit the website and if Active X loads, they can run and read emails."

Return on investment wasn't the most important calculation when putting the system in.

Robinson said: "That's a funny one because we don't aim at making money. We deliver principles. But in terms of value, it did exactly what we wanted it to - allow staff to communicate back to us. As far as I'm concerned, that was money well spent."

The system will also be used for the party's annual conference in Brighton.