A SOCIAL housing provider has issued an update after being hit by a "cyber incident" in recent weeks. 

Incommunities, based in Shipley, said it meant cyber security protocols had to be put in place and some systems had to be shut down. 

It's understood the issue first arose around two weeks ago. 

A statement on the Incommunities website, issued on Monday evening (August 14) said: "You may be aware that we have been having some issues accessing our IT systems and we wanted to provide an update on the situation.

"We can confirm that we experienced a cyber incident in recent weeks, which meant that we had to immediately put in place our cyber security protocols and close down some of our systems.

"We are still investigating and working with experts to understand the situation in full and we understand that this is causing some frustrations, but we ask our customers to please continue to bear with us and thank you for your patience.

"The investigation is continuing and will unfortunately mean that there will be some further disruption, therefore we wanted to provide an update on how this is affecting services.

"Not all systems are affected and there are many services that are continuing with very little disruption."

It added: "Customers can still contact us by phone but there is likely to be a slower than normal response time to enquiries.

"The main email address for enquiries, found on the ‘contact us’ section of our website is not currently coming through to our customer services team and we are looking at how we can fix this as quickly as possible.

"Up until now we have only been accepting emergency calls and logging emergency repairs as well as carrying out general repairs that were already booked before this incident happened.

"This week, we are gradually going to be opening up the booking of non-emergency general repairs as well.

"We are responding to emergency repairs and our out-of-hours service is working as normal.

"We also ask that customers still contact us by telephone to report a serious anti-social behaviour or neighbourhood issue.

"We are also unable to process and investigate complaints as we usually do.

"If you have recently submitted a formal complaint, there is likely to be a delay in processing and this will impact us being able to respond within the agreed 10/20 days response timescale.

"We apologise for any inconvenience that this may cause, and we will do our best to minimise these delays." 

The statement added that it is not currently able to take Direct Debit payments.