Portsmouth City Council has become the latest local authority to be hit by a cyber attack.

The unitary council said it was among those affected by a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack by a group calling itself NoName057(16).

Pro-Russian hackers have claimed responsibility of the attacks, which have also affected Salford and Middlesborough, among others.

Portsmouth said no municipal services were affected and residents’ data was not at risk.

A statement on the authority’s Facebook page. said: “We can confirm that Portsmouth City Council’s website is experiencing a cyber attack, meaning you will experience problems when trying to use the site.

“Portsmouth is one of several local authorities across the UK that will be affected by a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack by a group called NoName057(16).

“No municipal services are affected by the attack and user and resident data is not at risk, however the website may be at risk for an unknown period.

“We are working to resolve the issue as soon as possible and apologize for any inconvenience caused.”

The council said its teams were still available to answer queries during working hours and residents could access services online and make payments in the miportsmouth website.

Other town councils have also been affected by cyber attacks this week.

Salford, Bury and Trafford councils confirmed their websites were temporarily affected but said they were now back online.

The site of Middlesbrough Town Hall was offline Wednesday after its IT department identified an issue.

A spokesperson for the National Cyber ​​Security Center (NCSC) said the organization provided guidance to affected councils.

They told him Local Democracy Reporting Service: “While DDoS attacks are relatively low in sophistication and impact, they can cause disruption by preventing legitimate users from accessing online services.”