A ‘crisis situation’ has been declared across the Swedish municipalities of Borgholm and Mörbylånga after a cyberattack was discovered late on Monday.
An intrusion has been confirmed into the joint IT system used by the two municipalities, which together make up the island of Öland with a total population of just over 25,000.
Working overnight, staff have disconnected both of the districts’ official systems from the internet as a precaution, and “external actors” have been brought in as part of the councils’ incident management response, said Borgholm’s municipal manager Jens Odevall.
While Mörbylånga’s website is unavailable, Borgholm is hosted by an external provider and is still accessible. However a range of citizen services provided by both municipalities are now unavailable, including email and some healthcare services. Healthcare providers in the area have reverted to using pen and paper, which Odevall said is something there are routines in place for.
The nature of the incident has not yet been disclosed, but it follows a number of ransomware attacks targeting European municipalities, including the Belgian city of Antwerp.
