The Oxford City Council has disclosed a data breach that allowed hackers to access personally identifiable information (PII) from some of its legacy systems. The attack also caused an ICT service disruption.
The council announced the breach on its website, claiming that while most of the impacted systems are back online, there might still be delays going forward. The announcement also confirmed that the council’s “email systems and wider digital services remain secure and safe to use.”
As for the leaked data, people who worked on Oxford City Council-administered elections between 2001 and 2022, including poll station workers and ballot counters, might be affected. The council is still working to identify what data was exactly accessed and whether or not it was stolen from their systems. However, at the moment, there’s no evidence to suggest that any of the stolen data has been shared with third parties.
The council has contacted potentially affected individuals and has taken actions to “prevent any further unauthorised access to our systems.” A full investigation into the breach is ongoing, and relevant law enforcement and government agencies have been notified.
There’s no information on the type of attack or how the hackers breached the systems in the first place in the announcement. However, the council does claim that its “automated security systems” worked and removed the unauthorised presence from its systems. External cybersecurity experts have also been called for support, and they “proactively took down” each of the council’s main systems to carry out security checks and investigate the breach.
The council serves roughly 155,000 residents. A data breach, especially one including PII, could have far-reaching consequences. Although it’s not confirmed at the moment, the attack details also seem to suggest that this was a ransomware attack, although Candid.Technology hasn’t seen any major ransomware groups claim responsibility for the attack at the time of writing.
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