Payouts increased year on year.
Essex County Council paid out thousands of pounds in compensation for data breach claims since 2021.
An investigation by DataBreachClaims.org.uk found Essex County Council confirmed 2,895 general cybersecurity incidents since 2021, and between 2023 and 2024, the council logged 2,158 general cybersecurity incidents - a rise of 198 per cent compared to the previous year.
Essex County Council also confirmed a payout of £3,500 between 2022/23 followed by £11,500 between 2023/24.
A spokesman for Essex County Council confirmed it is seeing an “increased number of cyber attacks” but stressed it has “multiple lines of defence and different security technologies to protect its data”.
“Most of the cyber incidents in our statistics are phishing attempts, many of which are intercepted before they reach the user and none of which have been successful,” they said.
Written by
Dan Raywood is a B2B journalist with 25 years of experience, including covering cybersecurity for the past 17 years. He has extensively covered topics from Advanced Persistent Threats and nation-state hackers to major data breaches and regulatory changes.
He has spoken at events including 44CON, Infosecurity Europe, RANT Forum, BSides Scotland, Steelcon and the National Cyber Security Show, and served as editor of SC Media UK, Infosecurity Magazine and IT Security Guru. He was also an analyst with 451 Research and a product marketing lead at Tenable.
