ALMOST £300k will be spent protecting the council against malicious online attacks and prevent it from being held to ‘ransom’ by cyber criminals.

Councillors have agreed to pay for the extra security as part of its capital programme, which sets out spending on major projects in future years.

The investment follows a series of ‘ransomware’ attacks earlier this year that struck a large number of corporate organisations across the UK and NHS trusts, including Barnsley Hospital.

Ransomware is type of malicious software that prevents or limits users from accessing their systems, either by locking the screen or by locking the users’ files unless a ransom is paid. Some even puts codes on certain file types on infected systems and forces users to pay a ransom for the files to be unlocked.

Read more in this weeks Barnsley Chronicle