Russian state hack attacks on council 'increasing'

So-called hacktivists are using bots to try to infiltrate or disable council systems

A city council has suffered repeated attacks by Russian state-funded cyber hackers in the last two years, it has revealed.

Liverpool City Council said it had, "like many UK councils", had "significant attention" from the Noname057(16) group, with the so-called hacktivists using bots to try to infiltrate or disable the authority's systems.

But a report to go before council audit chiefs later said that its security systems meant it had not suffered a "successful ransomware attack" - where criminals attempt to extort money by hijacking and disabling IT services - for nine years.

The report, to be scrutinised by the audit committee, said bot attacks could mean the "takedown of public-facing services like council websites".

Liverpool City Council said it has come under attack by hackers several times

The report said: "Noname057(16) is a state-linked Russian hacktivist group that attacks western targets, mostly government, military, transport and health.

"We have experienced many attacks from this group and their allies using their Distributed Botnet over the last two years.

"Denial of Service attacks for monetary or political reasons is a widespread risk for any company with a web presence or that relies on internet-based systems."

The report said the council was using a range of systems "to reduce the effect of attack on our web infrastructure".