1. Has your authority experienced a major cyber security incident during the academic year 2023-2024? For this purpose, please consider a major cyber security incident to be one impacting multiple systems and/or users and resulting in unauthorised access or material outage.
2. If yes to the above, please confirm how many of these incidents were as a result of ransomware.
3. For every incident resulting from ransomware, please confirm the value of ransom requested and whether this ransom was paid (or if, and to what extent, any smaller payment was negotiated).
4. Less any ransom payments, what is the value of direct costs resulting from major cyber security incidents, including costs in responding and recovering from such events.
In response to questions 1-4, Devon County Council (DCC) confirms that we hold the information you have requested. However, we consider this is exempt from disclosure under Section 31(1)(a) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000. This is because the Council considers that this information constitutes valuable intelligence, that could be leveraged by a motivated cyber threat actor to inform a successful attack against our infrastructure. We feel that releasing this information would therefore increase the chances of DCC becoming the victim of a cyber-attack.
We have considered the public interest in releasing this information. While we recognise that there is an overriding public interest in openness and transparency, we feel that there is a stronger public interest in the Council maintaining the security and integrity of its IT systems. We feel that significant weight should be applied to this public interest consideration given the current elevated cyber threat landscape facing public sector organisations. For these reasons we feel that the balance of public interest weighs in favour of withholding this information from disclosure.