Cyber attack warning

Council chiefs are warning it is “a certainty” that a cyber attack will compromise their security.

A report this week revealed that hackers are targeting systems 24 hours a day.

And while most digital incursions are stopped, councillors have been told that an eventual breach is inevitable.

The security risk was revealed in a report that went before North Lanarkshire Council’s audit and scrutiny panel.

It said: “Cyber attacks are increasing. These attacks are not periodic one- off isolated events, they are attacks that are happening constantly, 24 hours a day.

“The vast majority of the time our technologies, processes and our staff stop these from becoming an incident but it is a certainty that at some point our security will be compromised.

“When this happens it is essential to have incident response procedures in place.”

The warning comes in the wake of cyber attacks on NHS Lanarkshire that hit IT systems at Wishaw General, Hairmyres and Monklands Hospital last year.

Almost 500 patient appointments and procedures were cancelled when computers were infected by the ‘WannaCry’ ransomware back in May 2017.

The health board was also hit by a further cyber-attack in August, which led to 184 cancelled appointments across the region.

After the NHS Lanarkshire incident, it was revealed that their computer systems would be better protected against cyber- attacks following the publication of a new Scottish Government project.

The Public Sector Action Plan on Cyber Resilience encouraged all public bodies to implement the same standards of cyber-security in their organisations.

These include active threat intelligence sharing, clear cyberincident response protocols and appropriate independent assurance that critical protection against the most common forms of attack is in place.

This week, councillors were told that the Scottish Government has made available a Scottish Public Sector Cyber Incident Central Notification and Co−ordination Policy together with an associated generic Cybersecurity Incident Response Plan (CIRP).

And the report said: “The council is currently working to adapt its existing incident response procedures to reflect the new policy and to align with the generic CIRP to ensure an overall consistency of approach by the council to cyber security.”

It added: “The purpose of the CIRP is to provide a consistent approach nationally to organisational structure, operational structure, processes, and procedures to staff, so that they can properly respond to incidents that may affect the function and security of IT assets, information resources, and business operations.”

And the report ended by saying: “The council is preparing a grant submission to obtain Scottish Government funding which will contribute to the cost of the cyber essential pre-assessment exercise.”

The purpose is to provide a consistent approach