In brief: MoD denies security scare

NEWS A UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) spokesman today denied press reports that a hacker has broken into its internal systems. Reports claimed MoD chiefs have appealed to the US Pentagon for help after hackers broke into top-secret military files held on its internal database. The spokesman said: "We're not aware of any security breaches and consider all our systems to be secure from external access." However he added that he would urge the newspaper in question to forward details of the alleged breach as soon as possible. According to the report, the hacker gained access to files only two levels down from the highest security. An unnamed MoD official claimed that the hacker could be a former employee.