Cyber attack disrupts Gloucestershire Council's website

A council is working to restore parts of its website 11 days after they were crippled by a cyber attack.

Gloucester City Council has been trying to fix several of its online services since the incident on 20 December.

Systems affected include the council's online revenue and benefits sections as well as planning and customer services.

It asked for patience while the services are restored and urged people to email it directly with any issues they have.

The council is also working with the National Crime Agency (NCA) and the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) to fix the issue.

Residents are also unable to access interactive online application forms used to claim for housing benefit, council tax support, test and trace support payments and discretionary housing payments.

Due to the attack, the council's planning application website is also unavailable, the Local Democracy Reporting Service said.

A council spokesman told LDRS they are doing everything they can to make sure customers can still contact them but asked "people to be patient".

"We have been actively working with the National Cyber Security Centre and the National Crime Agency to understand more about the nature [of the attack] and minimise the impact," he added.

"Our focus for the coming days is to manage urgent customer issues and to continue to work with the national agencies to bring our systems back online as quickly and safely as possible.

"For updates please check our website."

The NCA and NCSC said they could not comment further and are working to better understand the issue and support the local authority.

Follow BBC West on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Send your story ideas to: [email protected]