The UK government is reviewing its procedures this week after security breaches led to the disclosure of GCHQ boss Robert Hannigan’s private mobile number, and then allowed a hoax caller pretending to be Hannigan to be put through to the prime minister.
An official statement claimed that after the two hoax calls to government departments on Sunday, a notice had been sent out “to all government departments to be on the alert for such calls.”
The statement clarified that the number given out for spy agency boss Hannigan “is never used for calls involving classified information.”
Prime minister David Cameron is said to have ended the call pretty quickly after realizing the caller was not Hannigan.
"Both GCHQ and Number 10 take security seriously and both are currently reviewing procedures following these hoax calls to ensure that the government learns any lessons from this incident," the statement concluded.
The identity of the caller is not yet known, although someone claiming to be him told the Sun that it was a hilarious prank and that he would definitely do it again as “it was so easy,” according to Sky News.
"I've just made complete monkeys out of GCHQ. I've got the mobile number of the director," he apparently told the paper.
"What's more, I am off my face on booze and cocaine."
British officials are not the only ones under scrutiny this week.
A small drone managed to fly undetected into White House airspace early on Monday morning, crashing into a tree on the South Lawn, according to the New York Times.
The two foot-wide ‘quad copter’ was apparently being operated by a government employee at the time and was too small and flying too low to be detected.
Although president Obama and the first lady were on an official visit to India at the time, it has again raised concerns about lax security at the White House.
In September last year a knife-wielding Texan man managed to scale the fence and open a door to the White House before he was brought down by Secret Service guards.