A director insists Warwickshire County Council is well placed to avoid a Jaguar Land Rover-style shutdown despite facing "millions" of attempted cyber attacks each day.

Production at JLR plants has ceased due to a cyber breach with resumption not expected until October at the earliest.

As well as leaving its workforce in limbo, the knock-on effect is being felt by suppliers in Warwickshire and across the Midlands. 

In addition to the question of what support is being offered by the county council, Cllr Keith Kondakor was keen to check how vulnerable the authority might be during Wednesday's meeting of the resources, fire and rescue overview and scrutiny committee. 

He asked whether the number of probes on council sites had increased and whether there were any systems in place that are similar to those hit at JLR.

Director of enabling services Craig Cusack replied: "We track this daily and it is no exaggeration to say the attacks are in the hundreds of thousands if not millions per day, trying to probe the networks and the edge of the council.

"That is not unusual. It is something all public sector bodies are seeing at the moment and there is no specific reason why that would be (aimed at) Warwickshire, it is just the nature of the environment.

"It is closely monitored and I report a risk level to our audit committee, the environment around us and how we are dealing with it. 

He added that the likes of JLR, Marks and Spencer and Heathrow Airport had been harmed through "applications specific to them".

"We don't share those systems," he said.

"In common with most organisations, we use Microsoft and are fully protected by their tools. On the network, the hardware, we do have our own controls stopping attacks from coming in. 

"The greatest source of threat is people, unfortunately – phishing attacks, emails coming in, people hitting the wrong links or sharing information. We have a strenuous training and monitoring programme for that."

He added that the council had "managed to resist every attack" to date.

"We have had some close shaves but the work of the teams means that they will respond within seconds and minutes to beat back attacks as they come in," he said.

"At the moment we have a very high level of security against any attacks." 

Cllr Cliff Brownqueried whether the council's communications systems, such as emails, had been cloned by scammers. The answer was not yet but Mr Cusack warned: "The sophistication of phishing attacks is improving every single day.

"My own family members have received emails that look like they are from government departments, very close to what you would expect as an official email."

It followed on from concerns raised at Tuesday's meeting for all councillors. 

Portfolio holder for economy Cllr Rob Howard said the council needed to be "mindful… and make sure we are fully protected" before addressing the impact of JLR's shutdown.

"We are particularly concerned about the smaller companies in the supply chain and all of those employees that have been sent home on reduced pay or no pay at all," he said.

"I am pleased to say that Warwickshire County Council officers are actively engaged in conversations locally, regionally and nationally with regard to the ongoing situation with a particular focus on the supply chain and smaller companies who are being disproportionately affected, exploring with partners what support can be provided in these difficult times.

"This includes our own Warwickshire Skills Hub and the Department of Work & Pensions for anyone whose employment position may be affected.

"We are monitoring this on a daily basis. When it first happened, I think we all assumed it would be an overnight glitch, it has been going on for too many days and we need to keep a close eye on it."