Ouch.
On March 7, 2024, the systems of Leicester City Council in the United Kingdom were disrupted by a devastating cyber attack, forcing it to shut down its IT systems and phone lines.
Those affected include nursing home staff and homeless people.
By the end of March, the committee was “not yet able to determine” whether any data had been compromised during the attack.
But on Wednesday, April 3, Leicester City Council confirmed that attackers had shared around 25 documents online, including people’s confidential information.
Nasty stuff. The committee described the data breach as a “very serious problem”.
Well, yes, if a malicious hacker stole 25 documents, that would be serious.
But now we know that the attackers at Leicester City Council did not limit the files to 25.The council’s latest FAQ reveals jaw-dropping 1.3 TB of data Stolen during a data breach and posted on the dark web.
What happened? What steps did the council take to deal with the incident?
After the cyber incident on March 7, 2024, the ransomware group released approximately 1.3 TB of data.
We realize this may be concerning, so we’ve created the following FAQ.
What kind of information was stolen?
We are reviewing published data, previously released including rent statements, applications to buy council housing and documents related to this (such as passport details).
Due to the volume of data now released, we are unable to contact everyone affected. We are reviewing the data and will prioritize those most at risk.
Leicester City Council cannot rule out the possibility of more data leaks in the future.
If the theft of 25 files is “extremely serious,” I’m not sure that’s the right word to describe the 1.3 terabytes of leaked data…
