Portsmouth City Council among UK authorities hit by cyber attack

Portsmouth City Council has become the latest local authority to be hit by a cyber attack.

The Unitary Council said it was among those affected by a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack by a group calling itself NoName057(16).

Pro-Russian hackers have claimed responsibility for the attacks, which also affected Salford and Middlesborough, among others.

Portsmouth said no council services were affected and residents’ data was not at risk.

A statement on the authority’s Facebook page said: “We can confirm that Portsmouth City Council’s website is under cyber attack which means you will experience problems when trying to use the site.

“Portsmouth is one of a number of UK local authorities to have been affected by a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack by a group called NoName057(16).

“No council services are affected by the attack and user and resident data is not at risk, however the site may be down for an unknown period.

“We are working to resolve the issue as soon as possible and apologize for any inconvenience caused.”

The council said its teams were still available to answer questions during business hours and residents could access online services and make payments on MyPortsmouth website.

Other councils have also been hit by cyber attacks this week.

Salford, Bury and Trafford councils confirmed their websites were temporarily down but said they were back online.

The Middlesbrough Council website was taken offline on Wednesday after its IT department identified a problem.

A spokesman for the National Cyber ​​Security Center (NCSC) said the organization had provided guidance to affected councils.

They told him Local Democracy Reporting Service: “While DDoS attacks are relatively low in sophistication and impact, they can cause disruption by preventing legitimate users from accessing online services.”