Leicester City Council yet to restore phone lines following a major cyber incident

Leicester City Council says it is in the process of recovering from a cyber security incident it suffered earlier this month that affected helpline numbers for public services and other IT systems.

 

Earlier this month, the Council said in a press release that on March 7, it identified a cyber security incident that affected IT systems and phone lines. The Council immediately launched an internal investigation with assistance from cyber security experts to identify the nature and scope of the incident.

 

The Council said it notified relevant law enforcement authorities about the incident and its officials contacted other city councils who suffered similar cyber security incidents in the past to learn more about how they responded to those incidents.

 

The cyber attack had affected most of the Council departments’ phone numbers. The Council says it acted quickly to commission alternative numbers for the affected departments, including adult social care, child protection, homelessness, community support grant crisis, housing repairs, registrars, school transport, environment and noise nuisance and property related issues.

 

“Some of our services, websites, systems and forms are currently unavailable while we fix network issues. The numbers below should only be used in emergency situations,” reads a message on the council’s website.

 

In a press release published Tuesday, Richard Sword, strategic director of city development and neighbourhood services, said, “We are making good progress with the recovery of our systems and are now in the process of switching them back online, with housing, adult & children’s social care, and revenues and benefits being prioritised for this week.

 

“A good majority of staff are also back on the network. We still have work to do to get all of our phone lines fully up and running. We’d like to thank people for their patience as this carefully controlled process continues,” he added.

 

The City Council has notified the National Cyber Security Centre about the incident and is working with the experts from the agency to resolve the issue. “We are not able to say when our investigations will be complete. We will provide updates in due course,” Sword added.

 

Leicester City Council officials added that they won’t comment on the nature of the incident due to the ongoing “criminal investigations”. They said the Council is yet to determine if any personal confidential data has been compromised during the incident.