Scotsman investigation has recently revealed that hackers have cyber attacked more than 60% of Scottish firms since 2014, and this includes nine Scotland’s health boards. The investigation made by the media giant confirmed that in the past three years nine universities and numerous government bodies were targeted by hackers with malware which includes ransomware.
Freedom of Information requests made by Cybersecurity Insiders was obliged by the Scotsman sources that showed that 19 of Scotland’s 32 councils experienced either attempted or successful attacks since early 2014. This includes 14 ransomware attacks conducted by local authorities on multiple occasions.
Police authorities, however, confirm that no data was lost or stolen in the past three years due to cyber attacks.
Aberdeen City Council was one of the hardest hit in the cyber attacks between 2014 and 2017. The investigating news firm confirmed that Aberdeen suffered 12 successful cyber attacks, including 6 ransomware incidents and a case where the website was defaced.
Scotsman also confirmed that Aberdeen witnessed 15 million cyber attack incidents which include intrusion threats, spam, web risks and viruses in the last eights months of 2016. And police were informed of only two incidents.
Highland Council was the second to report of being cyber attacked 953 times which includes two ransomware attacks made through 415,000 Phishing emails.
A spokesperson representing the Scotland’s counsel said that all the councils have best defenses in place to combat with any variant of cyber attack. The spokesperson added that the council recognizes the importance of cyber security and so has the best infrastructure and people governing it.
Moreover, the Scottish Government has committed to accelerate the development of a public sector plan to help promote a common approach to cyber resilience across all public bodies across Scotland.
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