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LONDON: A hacker penetrated a British woman MP's voicemail and left a sexually offensive message that asked callers whether they had recently indulged in a sex act.

The hacker also disabled the House of Commons telephone system, the Daily Mail reported. Claire Perry, Tory MP for Devizes in Wiltshire , 117 km from London, said she found her voicemail had been changed.

"There was a general, system-wide failure overnight . But the changing of the voicemail strongly suggests that the two were linked , and that a good deal of planning had gone into the operation," she said. David Whitelegg, an IT security expert, said the hacker may not have been a prankster, but that he may have been testing the security of the system. "It's worrying because it is the sort of thing a terrorist could do prior to launching an offensive. It shows our vulnerability to a cyber attack," he said.