Lincolnshire County Council has confirmed it will not be paying a ransom demand following a malicious cyber-attack which shut down its IT systems last week.

The malware attack, triggered by email, had led to the council closing down its computer systems. Although the initial demand was for £1m ransom, the council said the culprit was actually asking for $500 in Bitcoins.

Judith Hertherington Smith, chief information officer at the county council, told local media that the council would not be paying the demand and expected systems to be back up and running from today.

Following a malware attack, the majority of our systems will be back online by tomorrow morning. No data has been stolen. Thank you

— Lincs County Council (@LincolnshireCC) January 31, 2016

The council said no data had been compromised and it was working with Lincolnshire Police to identify the offenders.