Government supplier Capita hit by IT issue sparking fears of cyberattack

UK outsourcer and government contractor Capita said Friday that it has launched an investigation into an IT failure that resulted in staff being unable to access key systems, causing disruptions to services for local authorities and some businesses.

Capita employees have been unable to access their IT systems since the early hours of Friday, sparking fears of a possible cyberattack targeting the company.

With £6.5 billion worth of public sector contracts, Capita is among the UK government's largest suppliers. The company provides services to several customers, including the British Army, Royal Navy, and fire and rescue operations for the Ministry of Defence, the London boroughs of Barnet, Barking and Dagenham, as well as South Oxfordshire.

It is also responsible for providing primary care support services to the NHS, electronic tagging for the prisons, and running Transport for London's road-charging system.

In addition, Capita, which has a workforce of over 50,000 employees in the UK, holds a contract with HM Revenue and Customs to automate certain tax collection processes.

The supplier has a £456 million contract with the BBC to collect the licence fee.

The ongoing IT issue at Capita seems to primarily affect the Office 365 suite.

A Capita employee told The Guardian that they were unable to access their laptop as their password was being rejected as "incorrect."

The company has advised employees not to reset their passwords or attempt to log in using VPNs.

"We are urgently investigating this and will provide you with an update shortly," a text message sent to all staff read. "Please do not attempt to access via VPN or submit password recovery requests."

Difficulty logging on is often an initial indicator of a potential cyberattack, as hackers may disable critical systems in order to access and steal sensitive information.

A source told The Guardian that the Cabinet Office, National Cyber Security Centre and other government agencies have been made aware of the ongoing incident at Capita.

Capita acknowledged the ongoing IT issue, stating that an investigation is currently underway. The company has not yet announced publicly whether the problem was caused by a cyberattack or not.

"Following a technical problem which has affected access to some of our services today, we can confirm that we have identified an IT issue that is primarily impacting our internal systems," Capita said in statement.

"We are working to swiftly restore those services that have been affected and will issue a further update in due course."

According to the Financial Times, several companies that rely on Capita for UK call centre services have been impacted by the ongoing IT issue.

O2 said that some customer calls may experience delays due to the reduced capacity caused by the unavailability of Capita-employed staff.

Additionally, London's Barnet Council reported that its call line was down. "Our main customer service number is currently affected by the Capita IT issue. All other phone lines into council services are still working," Barnet Council said.

Commenting on the issue, a Cabinet Office spokesperson said: "We are aware of an incident affecting some systems within Capita and we are in regular contact with the company as they continue to investigate the issue."

In an update on Monday, Capita said that there was no evidence of any data being compromised as a result of Friday's cyber incident.

"The issue was limited to parts of the Capita network and there is no evidence of customer, supplier or colleague data having been compromised," the company noted, adding that access to Microsoft Office 365 for the company's staff has been restored and it was working to bringing back remaining client services.