Oxford Metropolis Council warns it suffered a data breach the place attackers accessed personally identifiable data from legacy methods.
The incident has additionally induced an ICT service disruption, as introduced on the web site, and though many of the impacted methods have been introduced again on-line, the remaining backlogs could proceed to trigger delays.
Oxford Metropolis Council is the native authorities authority accountable for managing crucial public companies, resembling housing, planning, waste assortment, environmental well being, and elections, in Oxford, England.
The authority serves a inhabitants of round 155,000 residents, however its affect extends additional as a result of metropolis’s worldwide prominence by means of the College of Oxford, tourism, and analysis establishments.
A press release on its web site explains that attackers gained unauthorized entry to a few of its methods and databases, which host private data.
Primarily based on the preliminary investigation, the impacted system contained data on former and present Council officers between 2001 and 2022.
“Sadly, the attackers have been capable of entry some historic knowledge on legacy methods,” reads the assertion printed on the Oxford Metropolis Council web site.
“We have now now recognized that individuals who labored on Oxford Metropolis Council-administered elections between 2001 and 2022, together with ballot station employees and poll counters, could have had some private particulars accessed.”
The assertion claims there is not any proof that the uncovered knowledge has been additional disseminated. Additionally, there is not any point out of citizen knowledge having been compromised.
BleepingComputer has contacted Oxford Metropolis Council to specify if citizen knowledge was saved within the accessed databases, and we’ll replace this submit with their response.
The group says the investigation into the incident continues to be ongoing, and no indicators of mass knowledge extraction have been unearthed as of but.
Oxford Metropolis Council says it has begun individually notifying these confirmed to be affected, offering particulars in regards to the incident, obtainable assist assets, and assurances of strengthened security measures to forestall future breaches.
Additionally, the related authorities authorities and regulation enforcement businesses have been notified accordingly.
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