Three Kent councils have seen services disrupted amid a potential organised hacking attack.

Canterbury City Council, Thanet District Council and Dover District Council saw parts of their operations compromised earlier this week in what they are calling a “cyber incident”.

The local authorities are working in unison with National Cyber Security Centre experts as they investigate the breach.

It is not believed anybody’s personal data has been compromised.

The planning department, online forms and maps accessed via Canterbury City Council’s website have been affected.

Thanet has also seen its planning and online forms go down, while Dover reported having issues with online forms.

Canterbury and Dover councils provided the same statement to KentOnline. They said: "We are investigating a cyber incident and are liaising closely with the experts at the National Cyber Security Centre.

"Our teams are taking a precautionary approach while we work hard to investigate the problem and to minimise any disruption to our services.

"Our email system and website have been available throughout although some parts of the website may not quite work as intended.

"We are sorry for any inconvenience people may have experienced over the past few days and will provide updates as and when we have them."

A Thanet District Council spokesperson said: “Thanet District Council is currently limiting access to a number of its online systems. This is a proactive decision following reports of a potential security incident.

“While we investigate, this precaution may affect some of our online services. We are also working closely with the experts at the National Cyber Security Centre.

“We apologise for any inconvenience experienced at this time.”

There had been fears a fourth Kent council – Ashford – had also suffered from a cyber attack.

However, officers have denied this and stated there had been no unauthorised access or activity on its IT systems.

A spokesperson for Ashford Borough Council said: “We are aware of alleged cyber incidents involving other councils in east Kent but we have not experienced a cyber attack affecting our online forms or planning service.

“The recent incident we experienced affected the solution used for staff to remotely access our IT services.

“After a thorough investigation we can find no trace of unauthorised access or activity on our IT systems.”