Council targeted in second cyber attack in a week

Pro-Russia hackers have claimed responsibility for cyber attacks on a number of UK councils

A local authority has been the target of a cyber attack for the second time in a week.

Middlesbrough Council's website was affected by a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack on Wednesday last week and it was attacked again on Sunday morning.

The website was operating normally again this morning and the council said no services were affected and no council or personal data was compromised.

It added that it was working with the National Cyber Security Centre to ensure its data remained protected against future attacks.

'Necessary shutdowns'

Denial of service attacks typically involve flooding the target website with superfluous requests in an attempt to overload systems and disrupt normal operation.

The authority is one of a number across the UK to be targeted by suspected foreign hackers, Middlesbrough Council said.

Pro-Russian hackers claimed responsibility for the attacks last week which also affected councils in Salford and Portsmouth, among others.

The council website was taken offline for testing on Wednesday and returned to normal on Friday.

Middlesbrough Council interim Chief Executive Clive Heaphy reassured residents that their data and the council's data had been kept safe.

Mr Heaphy also apologised for any inconvenience caused during the "temporary but necessary shutdowns".