‘Too early to say if data stolen’ after several London councils hit by cyber attacks

Several London councils have reportedly been hit by cyber attacks in the past 48 hours.

Westminster and Kensington and Chelsea town halls say they are working with GCHQ’s cyber security center to protect Londoners’ data.

Nearby Hammersmith and Fulham, as well as Hackney in east London, have also reported issues with their IT systems.

Kensington and Chelsea said the incident was identified by itself and Westminster City yesterday morning.

The two councils’ shared IT systems and phone lines have also been impacted.

Constituents may struggle to get in contact with Kensington and Chelsea council.

The council added: ‘We don’t have all the answers yet, as the management of this incident is still ongoing.

‘But we know people will have concerns, so we will be updating residents and partners further over the coming days.

‘At this stage it is too early to say who did this, and why, but we are investigating to see if any data has been compromised – which is standard practice.’

Westminster council officials have pushed the red button on their networks as a precautionary measure, the Local Democracy Reporting Service said.

The council earlier today wrote on X that constituents are reporting issues contacting it through its contact center and online portal.

Hackney has raised its cyber security threat level to ‘critical’, with an internal memo warning staff against phishing attacks, in which cyber crooks pretend to be people or organisations to gouge the victim’s personal information.

The police were alerted to the wave of suspected cyber attacks yesterday, the force confirmed to Metro.

‘Enquiries remain in the early stages within the Met’s Cyber Crime Unit. No arrests have been made,’ it added.

The National Cyber Security center told Metro: ‘We are aware of an incident affecting some local authority services in London and are working to understand any potential impact.’

M&S, Co-op, Harrods, London’s Heathrow Airport, a London nursery chain, among others, have been targeted by cyber criminals in recent months.

Cyber experts previously told Metro that large retailers make easy prey for hackers, given the vast amount of customer data they handle.

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