Staff not offered cyber security training at 3 in 4 UK councils

Three in four UK councils do not provide mandatory cyber security training to their staff, despite cyber attacks becoming increasingly fierce and frequent in recent years.

This finding emerged in a report from Big Brother Watch, which contained many other concerning figures suggesting a high level of naivety when it comes to cyber security.

It found that almost 114 councils (29 per cent) had experienced at least one actual security breach between 2013 and 2017, with 376 successful attempts recorded over that time.

Twenty-five of those councils had data lost or stolen as a result of those cyber attacks, but more than half of councils (56 per cent) who experienced a loss or breach of data did not report it.

In addition to the 297 local authorities who did not provide mandatory training in cyber security, 62 (or 16 per cent) of them don’t provide any cyber security training at all.

More than 19 million cyber attacks are aimed at UK councils every year, according to Jennifer Krueckeberg, lead researcher at Big Brother Watch.

She called for councils to take urgent action and fulfil their responsibilities to protect citizens’ sensitive information by providing suitable cyber security training for all staff.