A cyber incident is an event with threatens the confidentiality, integrity or availability of information systems, networks or the information they contain.
Review our previous article: What's a Cyber Incident and what should we do?
Cyber incidents can be intentional or accidental and can cause major disruptions. The recently reported CrowdStrike incident caused significant global disruption. While there are huge impacts to the affected systems, for which there are now fixes available, there will be an aftermath of 'unrest' where threat actors will use people's vulnerability and concern to send phishing emails.
The NCSC has already reported an increased in phishing activity as opportunistic and malicious actors seek to take advantage of the situation. The emails could be aimed at organisations or individuals.
The NCSC has released this guidance:
| Organisations should review NCSC guidance to make sure that multi-layer phishing mitigations are in place, while individuals should be alert to suspicious emails or messages on this topic and know what to look for. |
Their full report can be read here: NCSC Major IT Outage
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What to do in the event of a Cyber Attack
Incidents or attacks where any security breaches may have taken place, or other damage was caused, should be reported to an external body.
The SLT digital lead will be responsible for assigning someone to report any suspicious cyber incidents or attacks. This person will need to report this to:
- Action Fraud on 0300 123 2040, or the Action Fraud website
- the DfE sector cyber team at
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You may also need to report to:
- the NCSC website if the incident or attack causes long term school closure, the closure of more than one school, or serious financial damage
- the ICO website within 72 hours, where a high risk data breach has or may have occurred
- your cyber insurance provider (if you have one), such as risk protection arrangement (RPA)
- Jisc, if you are a part of a further education institution
You must act in accordance with:
- Action Fraud guidance for reporting fraud and cyber crime
- Academy Trust Handbook Part 6, if you are part of an academy trust
- ICO requirements for reporting personal data breaches
Police investigations may find out if any compromised data has been published or sold and identify the perpetrator.
m. Preserving evidence is as important as recovering from the crime.
Forward suspicious emails to