Foreign Office was the target of 'serious cybersecurity incident'

A tender document seen by The BBC and The Stack showed BAE systems was called upon for ‘urgent support’

The UK's Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) was the target of a "serious cybersecurity incident", according to reports from the BBC and The Stack.

The details - which were first revealed by The Stack - came from a tender document published on a government website which showed that BAE Systems was called upon for "urgent support".

The BBC report claims that "unidentified hackers got inside the FCDO systems but were detected" and that it is "not believed that any classified or highly sensitive material was breached".

It added that the contract - which finished on 12 January of this year - was valued at £467,325.

A spokesperson for the FCDO told the BBC: "We do not comment on security but have systems in place to detect and defend against potential cyber incidents."

According to The Stack, the published tender document stated: "The authority was the target of a serious cyber security incident, details of which cannot be disclosed.

"In response to this incident, urgent support was required to support remediation and investigation. The awarded supplier is the authority's long term incumbent service management integrator and as such had resources on site with significant knowledge and understanding of the authority's infrastructure.

"Due to the urgency and criticality of the work, the authority was unable comply with the time limits for the open or restricted procedures or competitive procedures with negotiation."