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Three councils in the United Kingdom have take some of their public - face systems offline due to an on-going cybersecurity topic .
Canterbury City Council , Dover District Council , and Thanet District Council , three local self-confidence found in the county of Kent , say jointly on Friday that they “ are investigate a cyber incident ” that has disrupted online service for potentially hundreds of thousands of residents . All three councils said they are working closely with the U.K. ’s National Cyber Security Center ( NCSC ) , which confirm to TechCrunch that it is “ working to fully sympathize the shock of an incident . ”
When reached by electronic mail , Robert Davis , Andy Steele and Marvia Roach , spokespeople for Canterbury , Dover and Thanet councils , respectively , told TechCrunch that as a answer of the on-going cybersecurity incident — the nature of which stay unknown — parts of the councils ’ websites “ may not work as intended . ”
At the time of written material , Canterbury City Council ’s internet site states that resident “ wo n’t be able to apply for , report something or pay for most services online at the moment ” or “ search or comment on planning applications programme or apply our online maps . ”
Davis , the interpreter for Canterbury City Council , said that the city had isolate all organisation out of an “ abundance of caution , ” but added that the council ’s initial investigating intimate that no customer data has been access , recall in a argument on the city ’s website .
The NCSC and the three council declined to say whether the cybersecurity issue concern to an in - firm system or an outside vendor .
TechCrunch empathize that the ongoing disruption is join to an outage impacting EK Services , an administration set up by Canterbury , Dover and Thanet in 2011 . All three council outsource IT and human resourcefulness services , such as call center , benefits , and debt recovery , to EKS , whose website is unprocurable at the time of writing .
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TechCrunch regain that some of Canterbury City Council ’s payments systems , provided by EKS , were unavailable . Dover and Thanet are also both report issues with online form and online payments .
Since 2018 , outsourcing giantCivica has provided EKS services as part of a seven - year dealto cut price across the three council .
In a financial statement given to TechCrunch , Civica spokesperson Fintan Hastings said , “ We can confirm that this incident was not because of any of our systems . ” Hastings slump to gloss further but did not dispute that EKS had been the victim of a cyberattack . “ We will support touched client if requested and assist in any path we can to understate the impact for them and the citizen they serve , ” tell Hastings .
TechCrunch progress to out to multiple people at EKS but receive no responses at the time of writing . TechCrunch was also unable to reach an EKS representative by telephone set .
Do you have any more information about this incident ? you may contact Carly Page securely on Signal at +441536 853968 orby electronic mail . you could alsocontact TechCrunch via SecureDrop .
