Council has eight security breaches in five years
A city council said it experienced eight security breaches in the last five years, a freedom of information (FOI) request revealed.
Peterborough City Council (PCC) said it repelled “hundreds of attack attempts per day”.
The authority responded to a FOI request and while it revealed the numbers, it declined to specify the types of attacks as this could “aid malicious parties” and “expose any potential vulnerabilities within our estate”.
In a report published earlier this year, PCC ranked its risk of being subject to cyber security attacks as high.
PCC was also unable to provide figures prior to 2019 as its cyber security was then managed by government contractor Serco rather than in house.
“The council has been targeted by cybercrime and also by ongoing technological changes which remains a key threat to continuity,” it said in the report, published in February.
“ICT is central to virtually all service provision and as a result the council is dependent on this service being delivered.”
In the document, it said a “clear plan” and it laid out numerous ways in which risks could be managed in future – including “limitations to FOI requests”.
Other examples included staff training on how to handle private data, appointing a data protection officer and introducing “robust policies and procedures” around all kinds of cyber-attacks.
Controls that were already in place included mandatory training for council staff.
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