For a short period during the early evening of 5th November the Reading Borough Council website was affected by a piece of software that attempted to pass malicious software to user’s computers.

Unwitting visitors may have downloaded a video advertising itself as 'Jo and Viki Get Down and Dirty' or 'Daisy Pulls It Off' and inadvertedly installed a trojan* program which would redirect their browsers to Reading Borough Council Payments Online, a notorious phishing* site which lures people into handing over their bank and credit card details and then emptying their accounts.

If anyone has fallen victim to this scam, don't come running to us. We have no idea how to run a computer system.

RBC Computer Glossary

• Trojan - something pretending to be something that it isn't... like 'electoral roll registration'
• Phishing - Martin Salter attempting to use tax payers' money for political advantage.
• Worm - maggot like creatures often found in RBC bins
• Zombie - a 'more than my jobsworth' council employee
• Backdoor Attack - oh er, missus.
• Denial of Service - response you get trying to get the council to do something