LEICESTER City Council says it will take at least until the middle of this week before it can get its IT systems and phone lines up and running, after it was forced to shut them down last Thursday following a cyber incident.
Richard Sword, the council’s strategic director of city developments and neighbourhoods said: “Over the weekend we have continued to work with our cyber security and law enforcement partners, as well as learning from other councils who have had attacks, to identify the nature of the incident and the steps we need to take to get our systems back online.
“We expect that it will take until at least the middle of the week before we will be able to start the recovery process, beginning with our most critical services.
“We apologise for the inconvenience this is causing. Council officers are working hard to ensure that our frontline services continue to operate with the minimum of disruption.
“Advice and assistance is still available on our website at Leicester.gov.uk, and we have today set up more emergency phone lines in addition to those established last Thursday. These numbers are to aid those who need urgent assistance and not for general enquiries.”
Emergency numbers are available via the home page of the council’s website here: www.leicester.gov.uk/your-council/how-we-work/our-website/emergency-numbers/
The city council is the latest of a number of local authorities to be affected by cyber attacks this year.