Gloucester City Council & Connexus Hit by Months-Long Breach
Data breaches are no longer a matter of if, but when.
The months-long cyberattacks on Gloucestershire City council and Connexus serve as a reminder of this.
Both incidents were catastrophic. Financial lossess, damaged reputation, halted growth – the list goes on.
What Led to the Cyberattacks?
Gloucester City Council’s data breach came from a spear-fishing email in December 2021.
The email was disguised as an ongoing conversation between a council officer and a supplier. Something that would be hard to spot to the untrained eye.
It was thought to be led by the famous Russian hacker group Conti Gang, whose goal was ransom. As a result, they stole 240,000 files and encrypted the remaining data.
Connexus’s data beach, on the other hand, nobody knows who did it (yet). It’s still an ongoing investigation.
The impact, however, was huge. The hackers stole almost 10,000 homeowners’ information across Shropshire and Herefordshire, resulting in increased scam calls for the targeted residents.
Not only this, to protect their customers, they needed to shut their systems offline for months.
The Impact on Services and Finances
Both cyberattacks on Gloucester City Council and Connexus resulted in significant losses.
Gloucester City Council, for instance, spent £728,352.63 on specialist consultants and recovery support.
They also spend an additional £141,701.68 on replacing servers and other IT infrastructure and £272,400.21 on migrating systems to a cloud-based solution.
Alongside the financial loss, the Council had to get 21,000 voters to re-register. Planning applications were also delayed.
Plus, among this pressure, they had to outsource in-house IT as their provider, Civica, withdrew from their contracts.
Connexus has yet to disclose its losses. However, we can imagine it’s going to cost a significant amount.
They’ll be costs related to recovery, legal fees, and possible fines. Not to mention the shutdown and the potential loss of business in the future.
The Importance of Proactive Cybersecurity
The above months-long cyberattacks stress the importance of proactive cybersecurity.
These breaches were catastrophic, resulting in financial losses, reputation damage, and operational disruption.
And these are just some examples. There are thousands more. House of Commons mentions that Hackney Council cyberattack cost £12 million and Capita’s cost £20 million.
It’s also a problem for small businesses. In the same report from the House of Commons, small businesses had a mean total cost of an attack of £4,590 and medium to large, £40,400.
And there are no signs of cyberattacks slowing down. The National Cyber Security Centre believe they’ll increase due to the rise of AI.
This is exactly why you need to be proactive with cybersecurity. It can happen to anyone at any time, so having professionals protect you, your business, and its integrity is important.
Protect Your Business with XLCyber
Don’t wait. Secure your business today by partnering with XLCyber, your cybersecurity professionals who’ll protect you against the ever-growing threats of cyberattacks. Be proactive today and worry less tomorrow. Contact us today.