Last week, Glasgow City Council became the most recent local authority to fall victim to a cyber attack.
The City Council was hit by an attack, causing disruption to some of its online services.
Services for residents, including being able to view planning applications and paying penalty charges for parking were impacted along with household bin collection schedules and the ability to order certificates from registrars.
West Lothian Council was targeted in a ransomware attack on its education network in May, with all schools in the area affected by the incident.
In situations like this, we operate on a “zero-trust” approach, with our Cyber Security team taking steps to temporarily digitally isolate the impacted organisation.
In the wake of last week’s attack, the team has temporarily blocked all email communications between North Ayrshire Council and Glasgow City Council.
Blocked email from GCC will be held in quarantine.
In exceptional circumstances – where there is no other viable method of collaboration or communication – the team can investigate individual email messages and release these as appropriate.
Phishing emails (a form of malicious email) remain the most common method of instigating cyber attacks and the team would like to remind all staff to exercise continued heightened vigilance.
If you receive a suspicious email or other activity, please report it to the Cyber Security team by emailing cybersecurityteam@north-ayrshire.gov.uk or by using the inbuilt reporting button within Microsoft Outlook.
There is more general information and guidance on SharePoint in this article: How to report a cyber security incident