Data theft fears after cyber attack on Glasgow City Council

Glasgow City Council has been struck by a cyber attack.

The local authority said it was targeted on Thursday and customer data may have been stolen.

A number of online services, including paying penalty charges and reporting school absences, are unavailable due to the council taking servers offline.

However a spokesperson said no financial systems had been affected by the breach.

North Lanarkshire Council has been impacted by the breach as Glasgow City Council processes parking fines on its behalf.

A number of other public bodies have suffered similar breaches in recent months, including NHS Dumfries and Galloway.

Last month pupils in Edinburgh were cut off from revision resources ahead of exams after an attempted cyber attack on the council's education department.

Staff had spotted a suspicious invitation to a meeting and realised it was "spear-phishing" - which impersonates a trusted source - forcing all pupils passwords to be reset as a precaution.

The city council said it was "operating on the presumption that customer data related to the currently unavailable web forms may have been exfiltrated".

It advised anyone contacted by someone claiming to be from the city council to be cautious.

The local authority said security specialists reviewing the incident had confirmed it was not caused by email and that communication with the council by that method remained safe.

A joint investigation into the incident is being carried out between the council, Police Scotland, the Scottish Cyber Coordination Centre (SC3) and the National Cyber Security Centre.

Unavailable options on the Glasgow City Council website include viewing and commenting on planning applications, ordering certificates from city registrars and accessing household schedules for bin collections.

A spokesperson for the city council apologised for "the anxiety and inconvenience this will undoubtedly cause".

They advised checking online for updates on what services are available.

North Lanarkshire Council said that although Glasgow City Council processes penalty charge notices for parking fines on its behalf, it was still able to process payments on its telephone line.

A spokesperson said the council expected the phone line to be busier than normal and urged people not to try to pay for parking fines online.