Case Study - Chorley Council: Protecting Critical Services. Protecting Communities.

How Chorley Council Strengthened Cyber Resilience and Recovery Confidence with HybrIT

With more than 2,400* suspected data breaches reported across UK councils in a single year, local government organisations face mounting pressure to protect critical services, safeguard sensitive resident data and ensure they can recover quickly when disruption occurs. While cyber security remains a top priority, many councils now recognise that resilience is defined not only by preventing attacks, but by how effectively they can recover from them.

For Chorley Council, the focus was clear. The Council wanted to strengthen its cyber resilience strategy, improve recovery confidence and ensure the services residents rely on could continue even during a major cyber incident. *FOI-based investigation commissioned by Apricorn

A Growing Challenge for Local Government

The digital transformation of local government has delivered significant benefits for residents and communities. Councils now depend on a growing range of digital services, cloud platforms, connected technologies and third-party applications to support everything from housing to public safety.

However, recent research into the cyber threat landscape facing local authorities highlights that this increased transition to digitisation also brings increased risk. Ransomware, phishing attacks, distributed denial-of-service attacks, IoT vulnerabilities and third-party supply chain risks continue to present significant challenges across the sector. The same research found that many councils are concerned about incident response preparedness and ensuring critical services remain available during cyber disruption.

For organisations responsible for delivering essential public services, recovery has become as important as prevention.

Moving Beyond Traditional Backup

Like many local authorities, Chorley Council recognised that traditional backup approaches alone are no longer sufficient against modern cyber threats.

Attackers are increasingly targeting backup infrastructure as part of wider ransomware campaigns, attempting to delete, encrypt or disable recovery systems before launching attacks on production environments. Without protected recovery data, organisations can find themselves unable to restore services quickly.

To address this challenge, Chorley Council partnered with HybrIT to modernise its backup and disaster recovery strategy through the deployment of Object First immutable storage and Veeam-powered backup and recovery technologies.

The objective was not simply to create more backup copies, but to strengthen recovery assurance by ensuring critical systems and data could be restored quickly, reliably and securely should a cyber incident occur.

Building Recovery Confidence

Working closely with HybrIT, Chorley Council implemented a modern cyber resilience platform designed to ensure backup data remains protected, recoverable and available when needed most.

At the heart of the solution is immutable storage technology. Unlike traditional backup repositories, immutable backups cannot be altered, encrypted or deleted by attackers. Even if production systems are compromised, organisations retain access to trusted recovery points that can be used to restore critical services quickly.

By incorporating immutable storage into its recovery strategy, Chorley Council has strengthened its ability to withstand and recover from modern cyber threats.

Supporting Services Residents Depend On

Cyber resilience is about far more than technology.

Every council service relies on systems, applications and data being available when residents need them. The disruption of those services can affect communities, employees and service users alike.

Recent local government cyber research highlights that councils increasingly recognise the importance of proactive resilience planning, stronger recovery capabilities and improved incident response frameworks. The study also recommends greater focus on preparedness, continuous monitoring and resilient cyber defences to reduce operational risk.

For Chorley Council, the implementation of a modern backup and recovery platform was part of a wider commitment to protecting critical public services and ensuring operational continuity.

More importantly, it provided confidence that critical data remains protected, recovery can be achieved quickly and essential services can continue operating when residents need them most.

A Long-Term Partnership

Having worked with HybrIT for many years, Chorley Council required a partner that understood both the complexity of local government environments and the importance of minimising disruption during deployment.

HybrIT delivered a solution that combined Object First immutable storage with Veeam backup technology and secure replication capabilities, creating a platform aligned with the Council's operational requirements and long-term cyber resilience objectives.

The project provided a modern, scalable foundation for backup and recovery while supporting Chorley Council's wider commitment to protecting services, communities and critical data.

"With more than 2,400 suspected data breaches reported across 27 UK councils in a single year, we were determined not to become another statistic, especially when so many residents depend on us to deliver critical public services every day. Our priority was to stay ahead of the evolving threat landscape by investing in modern cyber resilience technologies that would protect our critical data, systems and services.

As part of our wider strategy to strengthen data protection, recovery capabilities and business continuity across Chorley’s estate, we needed a partner that understood the scale and complexity of our environment and could deliver a solution with minimal disruption. HybrIT made the transition straightforward, combining the deployment of Object First immutable storage on-site with secure replication to the HybrIT Cloud Platform. Their expertise in Veeam, backup and recovery ensured the solution was delivered smoothly and aligned with our operational requirements.

We have trusted HybrIT for many years to deliver the outcomes we need for the Council. By combining a proven service model with leading technologies, HybrIT continues to help us evolve our cyber resilience strategy, protect critical services and provide confidence that, should the worst happen, we can recover quickly and continue serving our communities. Today, Chorley Council has demonstrated its commitment to cyber resilience by implementing a modern immutable backup and recovery platform that protects critical services today while preparing us for the challenges of tomorrow."

Asim Khan Director (Customer and Digital) Shared Services

Preparing for Tomorrow's Threats

The cyber threat landscape continues to evolve, with attacks becoming more sophisticated and recovery becoming just as important as prevention. Rather than waiting for an incident to expose weaknesses, Chorley Council invested ahead of the risk, implementing immutable backup technology with HybrIT, Object First and Veeam. The result is a more resilient recovery platform, supported by HybrIT's extensive experience helping organisations develop practical, real-world cyber resilience strategies that protect critical services and ensure rapid recovery when it matters most.

Read more about our Immutable Backup-as-a-Service offerings.