Councils have been warned that they have become prime targets for Russian hackers.
The National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) has published an alert to ‘local government and operators of critical infrastructure' to bolster their cyber defences.
It says they are being targeted by ‘pro-Russian hacktivist groups' using denial of service attacks designed to overload or exhaust resources, taking websites offline and disrupting services.
Councils have been advised to ensure their defences are up to date and ‘improve resilience against attacks from Russian-aligned groups'.
The NCSC said the hackers are ideologically, rather than financially, motivated and focusing their efforts on NATO members and European countries ‘perceived as hostile to Russian geopolitical interests'.
The group NoName057(16) has been named as having conducted frequent attacks on local government sites.
