SEVERAL important city council services remain out of action and residents’ personal information is feared seized in an unprecedented cyber hack on the authority’s IT systems.

The council said the “significant disruption”, first identified on November 24, is set to last “several weeks”.

Residents cannot book waste collections, order death and birth certificates, respond to licensing applications, make referrals to children’s services, or pay council and business tax online. Complaints can still be made but cannot be “processed”.

Council sources told Extra they believed it is not a “ransomware attack” where a financial demand is made for the return of digitally-held information that is encrypted by hackers. Information has not been “stolen”, as the council can still access it, but is believed to have been “copied” in a serious data breach.

The chaos is also affecting Hammersmith & Fulham and the Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea that this week confirmed “some data had been copied and taken away”, adding that personal details could “end up in the public domain”.

Alerts have gone out for residents to be especially “vigilant” in watching out for scammers in the run-up to Christmas.

All residents have been told to be wary of unexpected calls, texts, or emails requesting financial details and to monitor bank statements.

Westminster City Council shares core IT infrastructure with RBKC.

The city council has shut down its computer networks and said it was still checking if personal or financial details of residents, customers, and service users had been stolen. It urged people to be extra vigilant when called, emailed or sent text messages and shared links to advice from the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC).

The incident is being investigated by the National Crime Agency with the Information Commissioner’s Office also informed.

A spokesperson said: “We want to reassure residents that council services are running, although some disruption remains. Immediate steps were taken to contain the issue and protect our systems.”

The latest update from Westminster added: “Unfortunately, residents and businesses are currently unable to make council tax and business rate online payments via the council’s website. Our online forms to order recycling bags, food waste liners and food waste bins, report missed collections and request bulky waste collections are not currently available.

“Our certificate ordering system is currently unavailable.

“During this time you won’t be able to join a library as a new user, but you can check out and return items using self-service kiosks.

“We are unable to update our committees and decisions website.

“We are unable to process complaints at the moment. You are still able to submit complaints but  please be advised that response times might be outside of our published timescales.”