The Wattle Range Council is investigating a cyber incident, where data has been accessed and taken from its IT environment.

The council confirmed that the cyber attack involved access to some of its file drives by an unauthorised third party.

Upon discovery, the council said it commenced an investigation to determine what happened.

“We have taken steps to secure our IT environment with the support of external investigators, the council said.

Council said a priority of their investigation was to determine exactly what information was involved, and who it related to.

“At this stage, we believe the information largely relates to files taken from a legacy server which primarily contains publicly available information and internal working documents.

“We are also aware that earlier today, Wattle Range Council has been named on a post on the dark web, alongside a sample of data which we are now reviewing as a priority.

“We have monitoring in place to detect any further developments or publication of our data and will provide further updates as required.”

In line with the government guidance, council has urged no one to access the post of the stolen data, which only feeds the business model of cyber criminals and could be a criminal offence.

“We are working with the relevant authorities and government agencies in response to this incident to ensure all appropriate steps are taken.

“As a precautionary measure, we remind our community of the need to remain vigilant against the potential risk of receiving phishing or other scam communications, in particular from any parties claiming to be Wattle Range Council.

“Please do not respond to any email, telephone or text messages that seem suspicious.”

Council investigations into the incident continue.

This article appeared in the  Naracoorte Community News.