Russian state-sponsored cyber gang targets Flintshire County Council systems
A Russian state-sponsored cyber gang attempted to access Flintshire County Council’s computer systems within the past month, the council’s most senior governance officer has told a committee meeting.
Gareth Owens, Chief Officer for Governance at Flintshire County Council, disclosed the attempted attack at the council’s Governance and Audit Committee on Wednesday 3 June.
He told the committee the council will carry a permanent red risk rating for cyber security, and linked the elevated threat directly to British support for Ukraine.
Gareth Owens, Chief Officer for Governance, said:
“We’re never going to be anything other than red with our risk around cybersecurity, and the reason I say that is because at the moment there are international state actors or state-sponsored cyber criminals attacking our institutions as a result of decisions at a national level around support for Ukraine and so on has made us targets for Russian and Chinese sponsored cyber criminals.”
He said: “I saw a report yesterday from the organisation that monitors our cyber reports and our incidents for us, and it refers in there specifically to a Russian-sponsored state-sponsored cyber gang that tried to access our systems within the last month.”
Owens described the situation as being like stepping “through the looking glass,” saying a local authority would not ordinarily expect to be a target of state-level hostilities.
He said: “It feels like sometimes in relations, because you’d have thought, ‘Well, why are they bothered with a local authority?’ It’s at a state level. We are in that situation, and we are regarded as legitimate targets in those hostilities.”
Owens told the committee the council is continuing to invest in its defences.
A new cyber engineer is due to start next week, with a technician to follow shortly after.
He said he and Aled Griffiths, the council’s infrastructure manager, had been planning a cyber resilience exercise on the day before the meeting to test what would happen if the council’s defences were penetrated.
Owens said: “I have always had nothing other than the fullest level of support that I could wish for from councillors across the board in relation to cyber work.”
The committee also heard from the council’s internal audit team, whose annual report for the year to 31 March 2026 sets out the current state of the council’s cyber defences.
According to that report, Flintshire County Council renewed its Public Services Network certification in October 2025, following an independent IT health check that identified and addressed critical and high vulnerabilities.
The Public Services Network is a secure government network used by the Department for Work and Pensions; councils must meet security standards to access it.
The audit report says plans to obtain Cyber Essentials Plus accreditation, a government-backed security standard, remain on hold due to technology gaps and competing demands on the council’s IT teams.
Work has started on the Cyber Assessment Framework, a self-assessment tool developed alongside Welsh Government, with three of the four objectives now complete.
The council also joined Cymru SOC, the Welsh National Security Operations Centre, during 2025/26.
Cymru SOC monitors for threats such as ransomware and phishing attacks around the clock on behalf of local authorities and fire and rescue services across Wales.