• by Ray Schultz , December 21, 2022

Publishers were confronted again on Tuesday with a problem that could inflict severe damage: The UK's Guardian newspaper was hit by a probable ransomware attack, disrupting its technology infrastructure. 

Online publishing is largely unaffected and stories are still being posted to the Guardian website and app, but the staff was told to work from home, the Guardian reports. 

The incident began late Tuesday night. It was not known at deadline if personal data was exposed.

In typical ransomware attacks, threat actors gain access to a company’s computer systems and demand payment to restore service.

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

They continue, “We are continuing to publish globally to our website and apps and although some of our internal systems are affected, we are confident we will be able to publish in print tomorrow. Our technology teams have been working to deal with all aspects of this incident, with the vast majority of our staff able to work from home as we did during the pandemic.”

Ransomware is a deemed a threat throughout the business world: 92% of global organizations experienced at least one email-based ransomware attack in 2022, according to a recent study by cybersecurity firm Tessian.  

Moreover, 10% of the security leaders said they received over 450 email-based ransomware attacks since January 2022. And, 72% of security leaders experienced account compromise or takeover attempts in 2022.