Hackney hacked!
 

The London Borough of Hackney reported yesterday that their council computers have been attacked and that many of their services are currently unavailable. They are being very chary about what actually happened, but it was probably a ransomware attack.

I had to look that up: "cautious, wary" etc.

Is this happening rather often in the UK or do they just report more?
I cannot remember hearing any such report on my local radio in recent years...

The really big ransomware attack that happened last year couldn't be concealed. It affected too many different systems. I've heard that attacks on individual companies are usually hushed up.

In this case, the problem, whatever it was, took down the portal through which users access all online council services, so it was pretty obvious to a lot of people that something was up and some kind of statement had to be made.