BRITISH NEWSPAPER THE GUARDIAN HIT BY SUSPECTED RANSOMWARE ATTACK

Wed 21  December 2022:

A major IT incident that may have been a ransomware attack has affected British newspaper, The Guardian.

Staff was instructed to work from home as a result of the event, which started late on Tuesday night and disrupted some of the company’s technology infrastructure.

Additionally, several services that are used in the background have been disrupted.

Online content creation is largely unaffected; articles are still written and added to the Guardian website and mobile app.

The company expressed confidence that it could still publish the print edition of Thursday’s newspaper.

The Guardian Media Group chief executive, Anna Bateson, and the editor-in-chief, Katharine Viner, told staff: “As everyone knows, there has been a serious incident which has affected our IT network and systems in the last 24 hours. We believe this to be a ransomware attack but are continuing to consider all possibilities.

Further details about the attack remain vague, and it’s unclear how The Guardian’s systems were compromised, whether data was stolen or whether it received a ransom demand. Ransomware actors typically exfiltrate then threaten to publish a victim’s personal data unless a ransom demand is paid.

It’s also unclear who is behind the attack, and the incident doesn’t yet appear to have been claimed by any major ransomware group.