Cyber criminals hacked into Sussex Police’s website.

The hackers set about gaining access to the force’s website – sussexpolice.uk – last Thursday evening.

Visitors to the website received a “Malware” – malicious software warning – sign after computer whizzes managed to break in to the “outer skin” of the website, preventing people from accessing it.

A Sussex Police spokesman said the hacking attempt had no impact on “operational systems” – and admitted the force comes under “sustained attempts by hackers”.

Hacking is an offence under the Computer Misuse Act 1990.

Sussex Police said on its website: “The uses of malicious software range from placing excessive demand on a computer’s resources, to destruction of data or even hardware.”

Aspokesman said: “Visitors to the Sussex Police website who receive a warning about access risks have been assured that there is not a problem with the site.

Risk

“As with other police, government, defence and public service websites, Sussex Police comes under sustained attempts by hackers to gain access to its website and occasionally one is successful in getting under the ‘outer skin’.

“A recent event resulted in the risk message being displayed for a short while and on some browsers this will still show as a warning from Google.

“We have alerted Google to this problem, but it does take a little while to address, particularly where a message may have been cached by individual computers.

“However, there is no risk to visitors to or website.

“Our public-facing website has no direct connection to operational systems, so confidential details are safe and our operational services are not compromised in any way.

“We have our usual alternative methods of contact in place – via 101 for non-emergency matters or 999 for emergencies.”