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Cyber Attacks (1038A/21)

Request

Over the past 3 years:

  1. How many attempted cyber attacks have there been against the force? This includes DDOS, brute force attacks, ransomware, hacking etc.
  2. How many cyber attacks (that the department is aware of) have successfully breached the force’s defences?
  3. To the best of the force’s knowledge, has any data been leaked online as a result of the attacks?
  4. Has that data included personal data from people who’ve interacted with the police?
  5. Roughly how much have cyber attacks cost the force (including hours lost on fixing any issues)?
  6. How much does the force spend approximately per year on cyber defence?

Response

Questions 2, 3 and 4 – West Midlands Police will neither confirm nor deny that we hold any of the requested information by virtue of the following exemptions:

Section 24(2) – National security

Section 31(3) – Law enforcement

These exemptions and explanatory notes are shown here:

https://www.app.college.police.uk/app-content/information-management/freedom-of-information/#freedom-of-information-exemptions

In line with the above, I am required to complete a Prejudice Test/Public Interest Test (PIT) on disclosure. Please find this PIT attached (1038A_21_PIT.pdf).

No inference can be taken from this refusal that the information you have requested does or does not exist.

Questions 1, 5 and 6 – see attached (1038A_21_attachment.pdf).

Every effort is made to ensure that the figures presented are accurate and complete. However, it is important to note that these data have been extracted from a number of data sources used by forces for police purposes. The detail collected to respond specifically to your request is subject to the inaccuracies inherent in any large scale recording system. As a consequence, care should be taken to ensure data collection processes and their inevitable limitations are taken into account when interpreting those data.

The figures provided therefore are our best interpretation of relevance of data to your request, but you should be aware that the collation of figures for ad hoc requests may have limitations and this should be taken into account when those data are used.

If you decide to write an article / use the enclosed data we would ask you to take into consideration the factors highlighted in this document so as to not mislead members of the public or official bodies, or misrepresent the relevance of the whole or any part of this disclosed material.

Attachments

1038A_21_attachment

1038A_21_PIT