Cyber attack: Hackers post Hackney Council's 'stolen documents'

A cyber criminal group has posted what it claims are documents stolen from Hackney Council in a ransomware attack.

The publication on the dark web of the personal details of council staff and residents follows "a serious cyber-attack" on the council in October.

Experts said the data was "limited" and "not visible through search engines".

Officials continue to work with the UK National Cyber Security Centre and National Crime Agency to investigate the hack, the council said.

Hackney Council's cabinet member for planning, Guy Nicholson, said the hack had affected services residents relied on, including by disrupting the ability of the council to process land search requests for those buying property.

Many residents have complained on social media about how the disruption has cost them financially and derailed house purchases.

Jessica told the BBC the hack broke the chain on her and many other people's house purchases.

She told the BBC: "It's extremely frustrating as the hack has ruined our plans and cost us money that we'll never get back. The sale of our property fell through because our buyer wasn't able to carry out a search on our house so couldn't get a mortgage.

"Subsequently we lost the house we were planning on buying and had already spent more than £1,000 on a survey for.

"We were hoping to have the house sorted in time to make use of the stamp duty holiday, but that's not looking likely."

The council said the vast majority of sensitive or personal information held by the council remained unaffected.

It added that it would support any directly affected people.

Hackney's mayor Philip Glanville said the hack was "utterly deplorable".

"I fully understand and share the concern of residents and staff about any risk to their personal data, and we are working as quickly as possible with our partners to assess the data and take action, including informing people who are affected," he said.

"While we believe this publication will not directly affect the vast majority of Hackney's residents and businesses, we are sorry for the worry and upset this will cause them.

"We are already working closely with the police and other partners to assess any immediate actions we need to take, and will share further information about the additional action we will be taking as soon as we can."

In February last year, another local authority - Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council - was hit by a ransomware attack, which cost it more than £10m.

This attack has caused real-world harm to residents.

The fact that people are out of pocket and have had life plans derailed because of a lack of land searches is a side effect to councils being hacked that few could have predicted.

The authority isn't saying much, including whether or not they have negotiated with hackers or paid a ransom.

Now that the hackers are posting data from their attack on the dark web, it appears we can deduce that they have not got what they wanted.

But we don't know for sure, and this hacker group is notorious for posting or selling data even after promising victims they wouldn't.

Ransomware experts at cyber security firm Emsisoft also tell me that the group, known as Mespinoza, are famously very amateurish.

Even if Hackney Council did pay, I'm told the data would likely be far too damaged and scrambled to recover.