The Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) confirmed on Thursday that some of its contact center, internal systems, processes and internal communications were affected following a ransomware attack that took place on Christmas Eve.
"SEPA confirms ongoing ransomware attack likely to be by international serious and organised cyber-crime groups intent on disrupting public services and extorting public funds," the agency said.
SEPA added that, after isolating the compromised systems, recovery will probably take "a significant period" and some of the infected SEPA systems will have to be replaced with new ones.
Email systems have also been impacted by the Xmas Eve ransomware attack and are still down, with some internal systems and external data products to be offline in the short term.
"[E]mail, staff schedules, a number of specialist reporting tools, systems and databases remain unavailable with the potential for access to a series of systems and tools to be unavailable for a protracted period," SEPA said.
However, the agency reassured the public that priority regulatory, monitoring, flood forecasting, and warning services still operational despite the attack's aftermath.
