Councils across the UK have faced thousands of suspected data breaches in the past year, according to local government figures.
Freedom of Information requests made to a sample of 27 UK councils by encrypted hardware firm Apricorn revealed that the local authorities had over 2,400 suspected data breaches last year, suggesting the sector is under intense cybersecurity pressure.
Of the authorities questioned, Surrey County Council saw the most breaches with 634, followed by Oxfordshire County Council (451) and North Yorkshire Council (406).
The breaches saw the unauthorised sharing of sensitive data, though the councils said that not all incidents resulted in direct harm.
“Even with training, guidance, and policies in place, basic human error continues to be a significant cause of data breaches across local government,” said Jon Fielding, managing director for the EMEA region at Apricorn.
The findings follow a more recent cyber attack against Oxford City Council this month that saw decades of private information accessed and disrupted public services in the city.
According to Sylvain Cortes, an executive at cybersecurity group Hackuity, “local authorities remain high-value targets for cybercriminals”.
Cortes said: “It’s a sector that is undergoing rapid digitisation to move services online and faces growing risks from attackers aiming to access sensitive data on citizens and employees.”
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