London council accuses watchdog of 'exaggerating' danger of 2020 raid on residents' data

**Executive summary:** In 2020 the London Borough of Hackney was hit by a Pysa ransomware attack that encrypted 440,000 files, resulted in the theft of 9,605 files containing highly sensitive personal data for about 280,000 people, and saw deletion of approximately 10% of backups; the ICO issued a reprimand citing poor patch management and an insecure dormant account, which the council disputes while noting remediation efforts.