Greater Manchester Police victim of HUGE cyber attack
Greater Manchester Police (GMP) recently announced that Digital ID, one of its suppliers, fell victim to a cyber attack. This unfortunate incident may have allowed the hackers to gain access to sensitive information about the police force's employees. As a result, the data breach has the potential to compromise the personal details of over 20,000 details, including names and photos of police officers.
In a recent statement, Assistant Chief Constable Colin McFarlane said: “We are aware of a ransomware attack affecting a third party supplier of various UK organisations, including GMP, which holds some information on those employed by GMP.
“At this stage, it’s not believed this data includes financial information.
“We understand how concerning this is for our employees so, as we work to understand any impact on GMP, we have contacted the Information Commissioners Office and are doing everything we can to ensure employees are kept informed, their questions are answered, and they feel supported.
“This is being treated extremely seriously, with a nationally led criminal investigation into the attack.”
ICO response
The news has drawn a public response from the Information Commissioner's Office. Its Head of Cyber Security Investigations, Elizabeth Baxter, said:
“Police officers and staff expect their information to be kept secure, and are right to be concerned when that doesn’t happen. This incident has been reported to us, and we’ll now be looking into what happened, and asking questions on behalf of anyone affected.
“Organisations must look after employee information, particularly in sectors where the impact of a data breach could be greater. The ICO works to support organisations to get this right so people can feel confident that their information is secure.”
Find out more
For information on how you can protect your organisation from a cyber attack, click here. To discuss your organisation’s cyber approach, call 0333 3209 900 or email hello@zenzero.co.uk