In a recent budget update report, Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council announced that a cyber security breach earlier this year cost them £10.4 million. The cyber attack on their website left more than 135,000 UK residents without online public services for nearly a week as the council dealt with the threat.

At the time the council refused to confirm the nature of the breach, but a cyber security expert believed the incident to be a ransomware attack. As one of the most prolific and costly forms of cyber attacks, ransomware involves holding an organisation’s computer system hostage and scrambling their data until a ransom is paid. Only a month prior to this incident, Travelex a currency service was affected by a ransomware attack where hackers requested nearly £5 million. At the time no customer data was compromised and Travelex did not pay the ransom. Luckily, the only real effect was customers being unable to access Travelex’s services during the attack.

Following the incident, the National Cyber Security Centre was brought in to help restore all services knocked offline which included online appointment bookings, planning documents, social care advice and housing complaints systems.

A spokesperson from the NSCS said "We have a massive team here - including cyber-security experts - working around the clock flat out to get it fixed.

"They have to go through [IT systems] bit by bit to make sure everything is clean. A lot of our staff are not able to work without computers but they are coping quite well here. The main problem is that we have no email systems. so we have extra phone lines for residents."

The cost of a cyber security breach

Since then the council have been forced to make improvements to their cyber security and have additional updates planned in the near future. At the time of the attack, the council had industry-standard tools to secure their network, which were configured to provide optimum protection. However, the incident left them overwhelmed and their level of cyber security has proved inadequate. According to Redcar council, after upgrading their systems and enrolling on an NCSC scheme, their cyber security "will be far more advanced than most peers in local government".

The cyber breach of Redcard and Cleveland Borough Council’s website is a clear warning sign to other organisations that without the appropriate cyber security measures, their networks are at risk. Whilst Travelex were able to escape their ransomware attack with little more than bad press, the £10.4 million cost to Redcar council and the damage to their reputation among residents, far outweighs the cost of implementing appropriate cyber security systems with experienced cyber security specialists.

Invest in cyber security

There’s never a better time to invest in cyber security than the present. Stay tuned to our blog to keep up with the latest updates in cyber security. For a chat about placing cyber security candidates in your business, give us a call on +44 023 034 0955.