Manchester City Council leader Richard Leese said the council's security systems had been the subject of a "coordinated global attack" and he believed the same was true of other local authorities. Although Manchester's security systems "survived" the attacks, Leese called for "greater awareness" of the issue, while warning that this "could happen, at any time, to any council".
Leese, chairman of the local government board (LGA), told the LGA councillors' forum on June 10 that the "coordinated attack" involved thousands of attempts to breach systems in short periods of time, from sources around the world.
Read also: Fujifilm: We are operating normally after the ransomware attack
Furthermore, Peter Fleming, chair of the LGA’s improvement and innovation board, said that the LGA’s work on digital and cybersecurity is “in the background, until it comes to the fore when a council suffers breach or any other form of cyberattack.”
Fleming also urged councillors to take part in a webinar the LGA will be hosting on the issue later this month, saying: “It is vital that we ensure we are at the forefront of keeping our residents’ data safe.” Fleming stressed the importance of understanding how important it is to keep services online and officers able to access the information they need to do their jobs.
See also: Spain's MITES Ministry victim of cyberattack
Redcar & Cleveland Council , which suffered a serious cyberattack in February 2020 that took its online services offline for months, is said to have "overestimated" the financial cost of the attack.
Redcar & Cleveland initially estimated the cost at £10.4m, after targeting its computers and website. However, the BBC reported that after a financial impact assessment by the council, the figure was reduced to £8.7m. Staff and IT costs were lower than expected, according to the BBC.
In April this year, the authority announced that it would receive £3.68 million from the government to cover the cost of rebuilding its systems.
Proposal: Ransomware attack hits company providing services to US Congress
At the same time, Hackney is still experiencing the impact of a cyberattack it suffered last October. In April, Phil Glanville announced that some services were still affected, including some aspects of land surveys and the processing of changes to existing tax claims and payments.
Many of these issues still persist, with a Hackney spokesperson recently telling Inside Housing that “full recovery of the housing benefit service will take a number of months”.
Source of information: lgcplus.com
