Only 28 West Flemish municipalities had a basic cybersecurity audit carried out

But there is little interest in this in West Flanders. Only 28 of the 64 had such an audit carried out. “We must encourage and support local authorities to raise cyber security to a higher level,” said Flemish Member of Parliament Brecht Warnez from Wingene, who asked minister Bart Somers questions about this.

After the hacking cases in 2020 in Willebroek and Kuurne, Minister Somers developed three initiatives with the Flemish government to support local authorities. The basic audit is one of the tools that municipalities receive from Flanders to gain insight into their cyber security. There is also the possibility to carry out an additional audit that is partly paid for by the Flemish government and finally there is the possibility to use ethical hackers.

Ethical hacking

Howest is participating in the project in which students work as ethical hackers on the infrastructure of the municipalities. Fortunately, more local authorities have taken advantage of this. It concerns 37 West Flemish municipalities, which is more than half. No evolution can be observed for this evaluation form. “It is good that West Flemish municipalities take on a leadership role, but there is always room for improvement”, says Brecht Warnez.

“It is clear that today there are municipalities that do not subscribe to the Flemish offer. That in itself is not bad. There are boards among them that are not working on this at all today, which is a bad thing,” says Warnez. “Despite all precautions, hacking can never be completely avoided. It is evident that every municipal council has an emergency plan for the moment hackers have entered, so that the service is reactivated as quickly as possible.”