Cyber attack legacy still lingers

GLOUCESTER City Council’s IT systems are still not fully operational almost six months after they were compromised by Russian hackers.

The local authority became aware that its servers had been compromised on December 20 last year.

The malware is understood to have made its way into the council’s systems via an email sent to a council officer by a third party.

This sleeper malware is believed to have been in the local authority’s system some time before wreaking havoc by encrypting their files.

The cyber attack knocked out several of the council’s online services and while many have now been reinstated, the planning portal is yet to be restored.

Opposition councillors have raised concerns over recent months about the increasing cost of the cyber attack which is the second one in less than 10 years to affect Gloucester City Council.

The bill so far is in the hundreds of thousands but many fear the final tally will be more than £1 million.

And many questions still remain as to why the city council decided not to take out insurance which would cover such an incident.

Other authorities such as Gloucestershire County Council do have insurance, albeit with a £50,000 excess. The city council has also refused to say so far whether people’s personal information has been accessed by hackers.

Liberal Democrat group leader Jeremy Hilton said the cyber attack continues to disrupt council services.

He said: “The planning portal is still not up and running on the website. This means it’s impossible to read public comments on planning applications or to research the history of former applications related to a particular site.

“Processing applications has been delayed and some applicants have been asked to resubmit their plans.

“There has even been an appeal to a major application affecting Hempsted. Soon it will be six months since the council’s ICT systems were compromised by hackers.

“That is twice in ten years. The city council must aim to get the planning portal up and running by the end of this month. I know the servers have been repopulated and testing is to begin. As planning is an important statutory role for the council, it must redouble its efforts to return its planning processes back to the 21st century.”

Labour leader Cllr Terry Pullen is also disappointed that there are still problems with the council’s planning portal.

He explained how before the cyber attack, access to planning processes, information and applications was relatively straightforward.

He said: “Whilst some aspects of planning information have been restored it is still not fully operational with some information still not in the public domain.

“Planning is a public service and it is important that it is fully restored by the council.”

Council leader Richard Cook said he could not put a definite date on when all systems will be back up and running as normal.

But he did say that work is progressing well and the council’s systems will have been upgraded and be much more secure once all the work is complete.

He said: “All I can say is that officers are working hard to restore all the IT systems that customers rely on and will get systems fully operational as soon as possible.

“Officers are continuing to process planning applications although we acknowledge that some delays have been caused by the cyber incident.”