STEPS to prepare for a cyber attack and potential data-loss 'disaster' are being taken by an East Lancashire local authority.

Blackburn with Darwen Council's executive board will on Thursday night be asked to spend £150,000 on new technology to combat digital criminals.

It will also be requested to set aside £130,000 a year to keep up its IT systems protection against ransomware and other cyber attacks as the council transfers its operations to the cloud.

A report by the councillors digital boss Cllr Mahfooz Hussain says: "The purpose is to seek approval to procure a new range of security facilities for corporate data that will provide greater capability of recovery from a cyber-attack or other significant data loss.

"Currently the department is using an on-premise backup technology procured four years ago.

"This needs to be improved to provide the required capacity and performance levels for safeguarding the council's critical data.

"The existing backup and recovery systems are unable to recover the council from the type of ransomware attack techniques now prevalent in the digital sphere.

"These attacks have transformed in recent years and are undertaken by professional digital teams who seed attacks an average 210 days before attack.

"The attacker's monitor organisations and attack when they business is most vulnerable and least able to respond. A new approach is essential to protect against this very real threat.

"We are clear that the cyber security threat is something we will always need to account for.

"As we are currently working on our journey to the cloud we will require a tool set that works across both cloud and our own platforms.

"We are most aware of the threats associated with ransomware. We are looking to implement facilities that will play a key role in our strategy for threat hunting, protection and remediation.

"It would include a new security information and event management facility a 24-hour security operations centre, new security systems, new backup, recovery and business continuity facilities.

"The proposed new system will safeguard the council's critical data, delivering improved provision for disaster recovery and protection against ransomware.

"Recent years have seen a significant rise in cyber security-related incidents affecting the public sector across the globe, as well as a marked increase in attacks targeting national infrastructure including local government.

"The department requires attack prevention work to quickly recover from a criminal attack in the shortest possible time.

"Having an appropriate contract for backup hardware and software in place will ensure the authority's data is efficiently and safely backed up and is quickly available in the event of a recovery or a disaster."