Nearly two thirds (64%) of London’s councils have suffered ‘astonishing’ security breaches in recent years, a freedom of information request reveals.
A FOI request issued to 32 London Boroughs and the City of London authority by Secure Cloudlink has shown 64% experienced a data breach in the last four years.
‘We issued these questions to London’s councils to gauge the security hygiene of the public sector,’ Mark Leonard, chairman at Secure Cloudlink, commented.
‘The sheer number of councils that have been breached is astonishing and reveals the issue of security is more prevalent than ever.’
According to the Office of National Statistics (ONS), there have been more that 3.8 million incidents of cybercrime in the past year alone.
In order to tackle this threat, the Government unveiled a £1.9bn package designed to boost Britain’s defences against the growing threat of cybercrime.
‘There is a mass market for stolen data and hackers have become increasingly sophisticated in their tactics,’ continued Mr Leonard.
‘Despite cybersecurity falling higher on the government’s agenda, the issue persists. Organisations need to be endlessly diligent when it comes to putting the correct procedures in place to alleviate the growing security risks.’