DORSET County Council has faced two cyber attacks in the past 12 months and is now working to do more to ensure better data protection.

An update on cyber-risk and ICT continuity was discussed at the council's recent cabinet meeting.

A report before cabinet members highlighted that the county council has experienced a number of cyber-attacks and continuity incidents over recent weeks.

It read that cyber risk "remains at a high level" and is flagged on the corporate risk register.

Speaking after the meeting, James Ailward, service manager for ICT and customer services at the council, said: "Dorset County Council, like all other public and private sector organisations, is experiencing a significant increase in cyber threats seeking to inject malware into our ICT network.

"We take security very seriously - we have multiple layers of technical defences to protect ourselves and monitor the latest intelligence on threats, while trialling tools to further improve our ability to detect cyber threats.

"In the last 12 months there have been two cyber incidents where Dorset County Council ICT systems were negatively affected by successful attacks - one ransomware attack and one Distributed Denial of Service attack.

"In both instances the impact was limited to a few individuals for a limited time, and all affected data was restored from backup systems, with no data breaches."

ICT staff are currently trialling some new tool sets with NHS partner authorities that may help detect intrusion more easily and quickly - although this will require investment.