The Guardian ‘believed to be’ hit by ransomware attack, staff told to work from home

The Guardian has said that it has been hit by a serious IT incident believed to be a ransomware attack. The publication says that the incident, which began late on Tuesday, affected parts of the company’s technology infrastructure. The staff has been told to work from home.
Newsroom unaffected
The UK-based media house says that its online publishing is largely unaffected and employees are publishing news to the Guardian website as well as on the app. The Guardian said it was confident it could still produce Thursday’s print newspaper.
“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,” said Anna Bateson, The Guardian Media Group chief executive, and Katharine Viner, editor-in-chief.
“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,” they added.

Other media organisations hit by cyberattacks
As per cybersecurity company Heimdal, German newspaper Heilbronner Stimme suffered a ransomware attack in October. In an attack, its systems were encrypted by unknown threat actors. The publication’s printing systems were compromised.
Nikkei newspaper publishing company also announced that a ransomware attack impacted the Singapore group’s headquarters on May 13 earlier this year.
Ransomware attacks on a rise
Not only news organisations, the healthcare sector has also seen continuous ransomware attacks. India’s premier institution All India Institute of Medical Science (AIIMS) was hit by a cyber attack in November. In ransomware attacks, hackers gain access to a computer system and then ask for ransom to restore services.
“Threat actors have modernised their attack methodologies, evolved sophisticated tactics and adopted a wide range of attack campaigns,” said Rajeev Chandrasekhar, Minister of State for Electronics & Information Technology.