Merseyside Police Federation I.T. Update

You will be aware that the Police Federation of England and Wales (PFEW) I.T. systems were subject to a cyber-attack on Saturday 9 and Thursday 21 March 2019. These attacks impacted a number of PFEW national databases and servers.

The first attack only affected PFEW's HQ at Federation House, Leatherhead and did not impact on ourselves in Merseyside. On Thursday 21 March a second attack occurred which has affected the majority of the 43 Branches including ourselves.

During the second attack BAE systems who were assisting PFEW were working on the servers when this occurred. As a result, we were immediately disconnected our network from PFEW to minimise any spread of the attack Both incidents have been reported to the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), the National Crime Agency (NCA) and the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO).

The attack was a Malware encryption one which is a type of malicious software which seizes and encrypts data. As the matter is subject to an ongoing police investigation, we are unable to comment further at this stage.

There is no evidence that any personal data has been extracted from PFEW at Leatherhead or from Merseyside Police Federation. PFEW are continuing to work with various experts to restore systems and minimise disruption for those affected which includes ourselves in Merseyside.

If any member has sent an e mail regarding anything to the Federation Office since 21st March 2019, we will not have received it and are unlikely to for some time.

I would ask that any e mails are resent to the following e mail address below or via internal post to the Federation Office, Tuebrook, Liverpool.

Federation.Office@merseyside.police.uk or phone on 0151-259-2535