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The Guardian Media Group (GMG) confirmed it was hit with a ransomware attack just before 2022 ended. The personal data of its UK staff members was compromised during the incident.
GMG confirmed in a recent report that it was hit with a cyber-attack. The attack locked GMG’s employees out of its office and disrupted its printing operations, payroll, and expenses. However, GMG believes it was just an opportunistic and untargeted ransomware attack.
The attack occurred on 20 December, and the company instructed its employees to work from home until 23 January while they identified and eliminated the threat. Further reports noted that the attacker gained the personal information of most of its UK employees.
CEO Anna Bateson and editor-in-chief Katharine Viner released an email to its employees, notifying them of the attack and informing them that sensitive information of its UK staff was compromised.
“We believe this was a criminal ransomware attack and not the specific targeting of the Guardian as a media organisation. These attacks have become more frequent and sophisticated in the past three years, against organisations of all sizes and kinds, in all countries. We have seen no evidence that any data has been exposed online thus far, and we continue to monitor this very closely,” noted Bateson and Viner.
The two also noted that the attack involved unauthorised third-party access to parts of GMG’s network, which the company identified was due to a phishing attempt. No details were disclosed regarding the nature of the attack.
How GMG handled the attack was praised by some in the cybersecurity industry. “The recent ransomware attack at the Guardian is unfortunate, but the attack does have an unprecedented silver lining. This is the first time I can ever remember an organisation acknowledging an attack immediately, even providing updates about it on its website,” noted Neil Jones, cybersecurity director of Egnyte.
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