THE CYBER incident that led the city council to shut down its phone lines and IT systems last Thursday (7 March) could continue to disrupt council services for at least two weeks, according to the director who’s leading the council’s recovery.
While the gradual process of restoring the council’s systems is now under way, strategic director of city development and neighbourhood services Richard Sword has warned that it will take time before all systems are fully working again.
“The good news is that we’ve now got the all-clear to start bringing our systems back online in a safe and controlled manner, and have formally entered the recovery phase of our response to this incident,” he said.
“While we aim to get our staff reconnected as quickly and safely as possible, it’s clear that it could take at least two weeks before full functionality is restored across our network and all services are back online – and unfortunately there will be delays, as we work through the backlog created by the shutdown.
“Many people in Leicester will be frustrated by these ongoing issues, but I’d like to reassure them that we’re working as quickly as possible to get things back to normal. I’d also like to apologise for the disruption and thank people for their continued patience and understanding as we work to resolve these outstanding issues.
“Although it’s still too soon to comment on the specifics of this incident, we’re continuing to work closely with specialist agencies and the police as they carry out their investigations into what happened.”
Advice continues to be available at leicester.gov.uk, while a list of emergency phone numbers has been published for those requiring urgent assistance. Those emergency numbers are available here
Answers to some frequently-asked questions about the incident have also been published on the council's website.
Cyber incidents – which cause significant and ongoing disruption to an organisation’s networks and systems – are increasingly frequent, with many large organisations, including other local authorities, experiencing similar disruption in recent years.