Criminal investigation into Leicester City Council cyber-attack

The city council says it is still unable to say if there has been a data breach

A criminal investigation has started into a cyber-attack that has disrupted Leicester City Council's systems for more than a week.

The council said it could not comment on the nature of the incident while the investigation was ongoing.

It told the Local Democracy Reporting Service it still could not say if there had been a data breach related to staff or residents' personal information.

Systems and phone lines have been down since 7 March.

The authority said last week it was working with "cyber-security and law enforcement partners" to try to get them up and running again.

'Careful' process

In an update to the LDRS, it has now said it is "making good progress" with that recovery work, and was "in the process of switching [its systems] back on".

Housing, adults and children's social care and revenues and benefits are the priorities for this week, said Richard Sword, strategic director of city development and neighbourhood services.

The city council is the latest in a number of local authorities to be hit by such incidents this year. At the start of the year, three Kent councils were hit by almost simultaneous attacks, knocking systems offline.

Mr Sword said: "We are making good progress with the recovery of our systems and are now in the process of switching them back online, with housing, adult and children's social care, and revenues and benefits being prioritised for this week.

"A good majority of staff are also back on the network. We still have work to do to get all of our phone lines fully up and running. We'd like to thank people for their patience as this carefully controlled process continues."