Cyber Attacks Hit Three English Councils At Once
Hackers have disrupted online services for councils in Kent and the councils have confirmed that they are affected by a cyber attack which has forced them to take down multiple online services.
The councils for Canterbury, Dover and Thanet in Kent, on England’s southeastern coast, with a combined population of almost 500k, appear to have been hit by a single incident.
Canterbury’s services including its planning department, online forms and maps have been taken offline, while Dover residents have lost access to online forms, and Thanet also appears to have lost its planning department and online forms.
“We are investigating a cyber incident and are liaising closely with the experts at the National Cyber Security Centre,” says Canterbury City Council on their website. “Our teams are taking a precautionary approach while we work hard to investigate the problem and to minimise any disruption to our services... Our email system and website have been available throughout although some parts of the website may not quite work as intended.”
Access to parts of each council's website may have been impacted as a result of precautions taken after the attacks.
The three councils are working with the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) and so far it is not thought personal data has been compromised, but checking will continue. The NCSC defines cyber incidents as a breach of a system's security policy in line with the Computer Misuse Act.
Thanet District Council said it was currently limiting access to "a number" of its online systems and apologised for inconvenience caused to users. "This is a proactive decision following reports of a potential security incident," it said in a statement. Canterbury and Dover issued the same statement, saying they were "liaising closely" with experts at the NCSC. "Our email system and website have been available throughout although some parts of the website may not quite work as intended," the statement said.
A number of UK councils have faced cyber attacks in recent years, including Redcar and Cleveland, which admitted a 2020 breach cost it more than £7m. Last year, Oldham Council said it was fighting off 10K attacks daily.
These attacks are not only destructive but can be extremely costly for the local government sector. The cost of the cyber attack which hit Gloucester City Council in 2022 was estimated at £790k and city authorities think it will ultimately cost them £1million to recover.
Canterbury.Gov: UK Authority: Kent Online: BBC: The Record: TheMJ: Computer Weekly: Yahoo:
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