Cyber attack on council sparks extra security

A council has upped its security measures after it became one of several local authorities hit by a cyber attack.

On Friday morning, Portsmouth City Council in Hampshire said it was among those affected by an attack by a group calling themselves NoName057(16).

Pro-Russian hackers, using a Russian flag as a cover photo on X, have claimed responsibility for the attacks.

It caused problems for people trying to access the council's website but residents' data was not affected and the website was back online on Saturday, a council spokesman confirmed.

Portsmouth City Council previously said it had been affected by a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack.

A DDoS uses multiple computers to flood a website with traffic in a bid to overload it.

It can degrade the website's performance or even make it completely inaccessible.

The government's National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), which gives guidance to organisations hit by cyber attacks, said it typically took "time and money to analyse, defend and recover" from such an event.

Teams were still available to answer queries during working hours and residents could access online services and make payments on the MyPortsmouth website, according to the council.

Middlesbrough Council was targeted by the hackers on Wednesday, with its website taken offline after its IT department identified an issue.

Problems were also reported by Salford, Bury and Trafford councils on Thursday.

The NCSC said it had provided guidance to affected councils.

It has since been contacted for further comment, following claims of fresh hits on UK websites on Sunday.

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