A city paralysed by cyber-attack: Civil C2 made real

A city paralysed by cyber-attack: Civil C2 made real

From Command and Control by Peter Roberts

January 26, 2026 · 37 min · Season 5 · Episode 19

About this episode

Sebastiaan van T' Evre shares his experiences and decisions during a major cyber-attack on the municipality of Lochem in 2019.

In 2019, the Dutch municipality of Lochem was hit with a major cyber-attack that impacted everything from welfare payments to the sewage system. The mayor at the time – Sebastiaan van T' Evre – considered that the entire IT system had corrupted including backups. Starting from scratch, and with the help of suppliers and partners, Lochem rebuilt the bare bones within 24 hours. As a journey in civil C2, Sebastiaan recounts his experiences, his decisions, the frustrations, and his objectives during and after the attack, as well as some lessons for the future.

People in this episode

Host: Peter Roberts

Guest: Sebastiaan van T' Evre

Topics covered

  • cyber-attack
  • civil C2
  • local government
  • IT systems
  • crisis management

Keywords

  • cyber-attack
  • Lochem
  • Sebastiaan van T' Evre
  • IT system corruption
  • crisis response

Mentioned in this episode

Places: Lochem

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