Mubasher: One month after the ransomware attack crippled the UK's health service, a new attack was launched against the British parliament on Saturday, The Associated Press reported.

Hackers attempted to gain access to email accounts, officials and politicians told the agency.

The first to notice and highlight the problem was House of Lords Liberal Democrat party member Chris Rennard, who, on Saturday, tweeted "Cyber security attack on Westminster, Parliamentary emails may not work remotely, Text urgent messages."

A House of Commons spokeswoman confirmed that unauthorised attempts were launched to gain access to parliamentary user accounts, noting that "systems were in place to protect member and staff accounts".

"We are continuing to investigate this incident and take further measures to secure the computer network, liaising with the National Cyber Security Centre," she said.

On the same note, the BBC reported that lawmakers failed to access their emails away from Westminster. This was "due to the steps being taken to manage the issue," it said.

UK international trade minister Liam Fox said that he didn't view the attack as a surprise, but that it should be a warning to Britons. He told news reporters and broadcasters that there have been reports over the past few days indicating that cabinet ministers' passwords were being sold online.

"We know that our public services are attacked so it's not at all surprising that there should be an attempt to hack into parliamentary emails," Fox added, according to the BBC.