Comhairle Nan Eilean Siar faces forking out £500,000 in its lengthy recovery operation following a devastating cyberattack.
Part of the bill will be allocated to adopting more modern and secure technology in building a new IT network to minimise the risk of a second cyberattack.
The council’s legacy digital technology infrastructure was severely hit, resulting in “significant disruption.”
Hackers encrypted the council's operational and backup servers, locking an immense number of files within the system on 7 November. The resultant widespread computer outage impacted its Stornoway headquarters well as council offices in Harris, Benbecula and Castlebay.
Six months on since the catastrophic outage, comhairle computer staff are still ploughing through a heavy workload to rebuild systems and restore full delivery of services across the island community.
It could be up to a year before efforts to resolve the situation are completed.
► Western Isles council tax bills delayed by cyber attack impact
Malcolm Burr, chief executive of the comhairle believes the final cost could come in at around half a million pounds at present estimates.
He said: “Since the cyber-attack the comhairle has taken steps to improve the security
of systems and safeguard data.”
The local authority is also embracing improved security measures to provide enhanced resilience for the future.
Approaches for cash will be made to partners such as Scottish Government to support the recovery.
An incident management team, established when the attack emerged, leads on the work of rebuilding systems.
Comhairle braced for £500,000 bill to recover from cyberattack
2 May 2024