The damage from the ransomware attack on The Guardian has been confirmed, and it is worse than first believed, Engadget writes.
The Guardian has admitted that it was the target of a ransomware attack in December and that individuals from the UK had their personal information accessed as a result of the incident.
The Attack Is Reportedly Highly Sophisticated In Nature
The announcement was confirmed by Anna Bateson, chief executive of The Guardian Media Group, and Katharine Viner, editor-in-chief of The Guardian, in a Wednesday afternoon email to staff.
According to its description, the incident was a highly sophisticated cyberattack that gave unauthorized third parties access to certain of our network.
It is most likely brought on by a "phishing" attempt, in which the target is duped into downloading malware, frequently by email.
Bateson and Viner recognized that this was a "criminal" ransomware attack and that The Guardian was not the intended target of the culprits.
Although the paper notified the police and the UK's Information Commissioner's Office, the authorities refrained from naming the suspected offenders.
The Guardian claimed it had no grounds to suspect that subscribers' and readers' personal information had been accessed.
The personal information of Guardian employees in the US and Australia is also not thought to have been accessed.
The risk of fraud is thought to be low because there hasn't been any proof of data exposure online, according to the notice sent to staff.
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The Guardian's Staff Is Expected To Stay Off Office While Authorities Investigate
Workers will not return to the office until the beginning of February, however The Guardian now anticipates certain crucial systems to be operational again within the next two weeks.
Since the attack was discovered on December 20, the majority of the staff has been working from home, according to Engadget.
However, they were initially simply instructed to avoid the office for the rest of that week to give the IT team more time to restore infrastructure.
"We believe this was a criminal ransomware attack, and not the specific targeting of the Guardian as a media organization," said Bateson and Viner.
In the last three years, attacks of this nature have increased in frequency and sophistication against organizations of all sizes and types, worldwide.
Since then, the business has continued to publish its publications both online and in print, according to The Guardian.
Despite this, the confirmation makes this one of the press's most significant recent online security issues.
It can be remembered that early last fall, Fast Company was taken offline for eight days, while The New York Post was victimized by a disgruntled employee weeks later.
In the preceding 12 months, two in five UK businesses reported cyber security breaches or attacks, according to government data from the previous year.
Over three weeks after the ransomware attack, The Guardian is still coping with the fallout and won't be back to business as usual for some time.
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