The Welsh Government is making £248,000 available to local authorities to strengthen their cyber security.
The move comes amid sustained worries about cyber attacks during the coronavirus crisis, and involves an initial grant of £9,000 to each council and the option to apply for extra money form a £50,000 reserve fund.
Finance Minister Rebecca Evans said: “Cyber security is vitally important as we all make the most of digital services during these challenging times. Sadly, there are people who will try to exploit this crisis.
“The funding I am announcing today will help provide additional resilience within local authority IT systems in response to the increase in cybercrime during the Covid-19 crisis. This is the latest in a series of improvement measures we are taking to help ensure that Wales continues to be a cyber-secure nation.”
Last month the National Cyber Security Centre warned that there had been a growing use of Covid related themes by cyber actors and said that organisations should be very alert to potential cyber threats during the crisis.
It published an advisory note in collaboration with the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency along with a non-exhaustive list of indicators of compromise.
Image by Blue Coat Photos, CC BY 2.0 through flickr
