Major incident declared in cyber attack

Many of the council's services are unavailable at the moment

A council has asked local people to "bear with them" as they face a major incident and recover from a cyber attack.

Tewkesbury Borough Council took "necessary cyber response steps" and began shutting down its systems following the incident on Wednesday afternoon.

Council chief executive Alistair Cunningham said there was "no evidence of data removal/exfiltration" from the organisation.

An investigation into the attack is under way, and council leaders are working closely with the national cyber security centre and counter-fraud agency.

Speaking to BBC Radio Gloucestershire, Mr Cunningham said the council "became aware on Wednesday of unknown user accounts in their system.

"As a result of that, we immediately effected a shutdown of all our systems, and have been investigating what's happening."

"There's no evidence of data removal/exfiltration from the organisation," Mr Cunningham said.

'Bear with us'

Mr Cunningham said making services available to vulnerable residents was the priority, alongside investigating what happened.

"We have now re-established our phone line and we are building new computers to provide more and more phone lines" he said.

"We will be deploying staff around the borough, our website is clean, still operating and not impacted."

"I would stress: we are not open for business, so if you have an issue with a hedge outside your house or grass isn't cut, I'm sorry, but please bear with us because we have limited capabilities.

"I don't want someone who's at risk of losing their house or who can't feed their children not to be able to talk to my staff."

Council staff will be available to talk in several places on Thursday afternoon:

• Bishop’s Cleeve Parish Council until 15:00 BST

• Churchdown police bus at Tesco car park until 16:00 BST

• Brockworth Community Centre at Court Road until 16:00 BST

The council said it was working to understand what happened.

"We do not know the extent of the infiltration of our system," Mr Cunningham said.

He added it would be "negligent" to reopen all services before the extent of the attack could be established and that waste and recycling service are still operational.