Over the past 9 months, cyber-attacks on UK Council council services have skyrocketed with recent statistics revealing local authorities are faced with 37 attempted breaches on average every minute. Some high profile attacks earlier this year included Redcar and Cleveland council, both hit with devastating ransomware attacks that put systems out of service for weeks. In early October Hackney council became the latest victim of this string of ransomware attacks.

The mayor of Hackney announced that they were working closely with the National Cyber Security Centre to resolve the issue as quickly as possible, “Our focus is on continuing to deliver essential frontline services, especially to our most vulnerable residents, and protecting data, while restoring affected services as soon as possible." However, this didn't fix the essential services that the attack had compromised. The target of the attack was the councils 'One Account' service which provides Hackney residents with a 'private and secure' way to manage online services including paying council tax, applying for housing benefit, paying rent and apply for housing repairs among many other services.

Now, over four weeks after the initial breach and the councils One Account remains compromised including its ability to make and receive most forms of payment. At this stage, it is unclear how much personal data relating to staff and local residents has been lost during the breach but it could be thousands of Hackney residents.

This is a great example of how cyberattacks cause crippling long term damage to organisations, to stay up to date on cybersecurity news and tips on how to stay protected follow ADNS group on LinkedIn Twitter and Facebook today.