Kensington and Chelsea has been plunged into digital chaos after a major cyberattack forced the Royal Borough into emergency mode — with staff ordered to work from home, systems shut down, and phone lines still unreliable.

The cyber assault, which has also hit Westminster and Hammersmith & Fulham under joint IT arrangements, is now being probed by the National Crime Agency and GCHQ’s cyber spooks.

 

 

Insiders say the move to disconnect council servers — an “extreme and blunt” step normally reserved for catastrophes — shows just how serious the breach is.

In an emergency video broadcast on YouTube late on Thursday, council leader Elizabeth Campbell announced that the tech’ system is expected to be affected for TWO WEEKS.

A worried town hall source admitted parts of RBKC’s network have been deliberately kept offline “for some days” as tech teams scramble to contain the fallout.

One internal memo, seen by the Local Democracy Reporting Service, warns staff to “remain vigilant” while systems stay shut as a precaution. The note says staff can continue to access the guest Wi-Fi and mobile hotspots in their offices, but the authority is not predicting a full return of all affected systems “for some days”.

 

A spokesperson for RBKC said: “Our IT teams have worked through the night this week and have now established the cause of a cyber incident which was identified on Monday. We will not be giving out further details of the incident at this stage because the investigation is continuing.”

The council said some of its systems, including phone lines, continued to be disrupted by the attack, but said it had placed alternative contact numbers on its website.

The spokesperson added: “Our website is undergoing planned maintenance relating to ongoing management of the incident, so some pages may be in and out across the day and residents may not be able to use our online forms. We are working hard to bring services back online.”

RBKC spends more than £12m annually on IT and security systems.