The Guardian British newspaper was attacked by ransomware • The Register

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British media outlet The Guardian has become the victim of a ransomware attack that appears to have wiped out a large portion of office-based systems.

Journalists at the centre-left newspaper continued to work from home and post on its website, but according to the same publication’s output, it had suffered a “serious IT incident, believed to be a ransomware attack”.

She added that the attack occurred on Tuesday evening and affected parts of the company’s technology infrastructure, and employees were asked to work from home. There have been some disruptions to the behind-the-scenes services, but the company said it was confident it could still produce Thursday’s print newspaper.

We can only assume that there would be tears in the quinoa if it didn’t.

Anna Bateson, chief executive of the Guardian Media Group, and editor-in-chief Catherine Viner, told staff: “As everyone knows, there has been a serious incident affecting our IT network and systems over the past 24 hours. We believe this is a ransomware attack but we continue to look into it.” In all likelihood, our technology teams are working to handle all aspects of this incident, with the vast majority of our employees able to work from home as we have done during the pandemic.”

The Guardian — which has exposed important stories in the UK, including the phone-hacking scandal and the cash-for-questions case in the 1990s — said news organizations around the world have been regular targets of cyber-attacks by criminals and nation-states, although the company is in this Stage said it believed the incident was likely a ransomware attack.

a report [PDF] By the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), part of the US Treasury, it found that the impact of ransomware attacks — measured in Bank Secrecy Act files — reached $1.2 billion in 2021, an increase of 188 percent compared to 2020.

“FinCEN’s analysis of 2021 ransomware-related BSA files indicates that ransomware remains a significant threat to US critical infrastructure sectors, businesses, and the public,” the company said. ®

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