Council says no evidence that personal data has been breached.
Tewkesbury Borough Council has said it has “identified an ongoing cyber incident”.
The council said there is no evidence that personal data has been breached, and after discovering the incident on Wednesday of this week, it “shut our systems down as a precaution” and this included telephone and IT systems. “We have been working to manage the incident,” it said.
Jake Moore, global cybersecurity advisor at ESET, said that attacks like this can often be due to a lack in funding, which can result in weaker network protection and older systems. “This inadvertently makes them susceptible to multiple cyber-attacks like the one Tewkesbury Council has disclosed,” he said.
“This latest disruption highlights the critical need for more effective and sturdy backup systems, as well as better security and education. There are now endless examples of other councils being struck in similar attacks and often there can be weeks of disruption, causing havoc for the wider community.”
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.
