Cyberattack focusing on UK councils causes on-line disruption

Three councils in the UK have taken a few of their public-facing techniques offline attributable to an ongoing cybersecurity challenge.

Canterbury Metropolis Council, Dover District Council, and Thanet District Council, three native authorities based mostly within the county of Kent, mentioned collectively on Friday that they “are investigating a cyber incident” that has disrupted on-line providers for probably a whole lot of 1000’s of residents. All three councils mentioned they’re working carefully with the U.Ok.’s Nationwide Cyber Safety Heart (NCSC), which confirmed to TechCrunch that it’s “working to fully understand the impact of an incident.”

When reached by e-mail, Robert Davis, Andy Steele and Marvia Roach, spokespeople for Canterbury, Dover and Thanet councils, respectively, instructed TechCrunch that on account of the continuing cybersecurity incident — the character of which stays unknown — elements of the councils’ web sites “may not work as intended.”

On the time of writing, Canterbury Metropolis Council’s web site states that residents “won’t be able to apply for, report something or pay for most services online at the moment” or “search or comment on planning applications or use our online maps.”

Davis, the spokesperson for Canterbury Metropolis Council, mentioned that the town had remoted all techniques out of an “abundance of caution,” however added that the council’s preliminary investigation means that no buyer knowledge has been accessed, echoed in a statement on the city’s website.

The NCSC and the three councils declined to say whether or not the cybersecurity challenge pertains to an in-house system or an out of doors vendor.

TechCrunch understands that the continuing disruption is linked to an outage impacting EK Providers, a company arrange by Canterbury, Dover and Thanet in 2011. All three councils outsource IT and human assets providers, comparable to name middle, advantages, and debt restoration, to EKS, whose web site is inaccessible on the time of writing.

TechCrunch discovered that a few of Canterbury Metropolis Council’s funds techniques, offered by EKS, have been unavailable. Dover and Thanet are additionally each reporting points with on-line kinds and on-line funds.

Since 2018, outsourcing big Civica has provided EKS services as part of a seven-year deal to chop prices throughout the three councils.

In an announcement given to TechCrunch, Civica spokesperson Fintan Hastings mentioned, “We can confirm that this incident was not caused by any of our systems.” Hastings declined to remark additional however didn’t dispute that EKS had been the sufferer of a cyberattack. “We will support affected customers if requested and assist in any way we can to minimize the impact for them and the citizens they serve,” mentioned Hastings.

TechCrunch reached out to a number of individuals at EKS however obtained no responses on the time of writing. TechCrunch was additionally unable to achieve an EKS consultant by telephone.

Do you’ve got any extra details about this incident? You possibly can contact Carly Web page securely on Sign at +441536 853968 or by email. You may also contact TechCrunch via SecureDrop.