Hackers attempted Friday to break into the servers used by the British Parliament, part of an apparent effort to gain access to the personal email accounts used by politicians and their staff. British security officials closed off outside access to servers in order to head off the hackers.

“The Houses of Parliament have discovered unauthorized attempts to access parliamentary user accounts,” said a spokeswoman for the House of Commons, according to the BBC. “We are continuing to investigate this incident and take further measures to secure the computer network.”