The Guardian Confirms UK Members’ Data Was Accessed in Ransomware Attack

The Guardian has verified that menace actors stole the private data of UK staff customers through the ransomware attack that affected its systems on December 20, 2022.

The updates appear from The Guardian Media Group’s main government, Anna Bateson, and The Guardian’s editor-in-main, Katharine Viner, who emailed team users on Wednesday.

The executives have described the incident as a “really advanced cyber-attack involving unauthorized third-party access to pieces of our network,” probably prompted by a prosperous phishing attempt. They have also reported that the attack was not directly focusing on The Guardian.

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“We usually listen to incidents of this type described as ‘sophisticated,’ when in truth it is pretty frequent and quick to execute – a ransomware attack infiltrating a network by way of a very simple phishing attempt is a tale as outdated as time,” commented Dominic Trott, head of method at Orange Cyberdefense.

“I consider the days of referring to ‘spray and pray’ phishing as a sophisticated attack are driving us […] As a result, this incident really should generate residence the actuality that it would not get a lot to infiltrate a key corporation, so training and recognition of even the most basic tactics made use of by cyber-criminals should not go forgotten.”

At the exact same time, Bateson and Viner clarified that the publication experienced no motive to feel the particular data of readers and subscribers, as effectively as The Guardian US and The Guardian Australia employees, was accessed.

Even concerning the stolen details of UK personnel, The Guardian executives mentioned they experienced located no proof of information remaining exposed on the internet, so they regarded as the risk of fraud small.

Continue to, in accordance to Erich Kron, security consciousness advocate at KnowBe4, the attack really should serve as a lesson that no make a difference the field, absolutely everyone can be a concentrate on of ransomware.

“To put together for ransomware, organizations must assure they have very good, tested and off-line backups, and should really make certain they are educating their employees on how to determine and report phishing email messages,” Kron instructed Infosecurity.

“In addition, information decline prevention (DLP) controls are critical as undesirable actors normally steal data and use the threat of releasing it publicly to extort victims.”

The Guardian extra that although some critical units will be back up and running “in the future two months,” returning to place of work do the job has been postponed until finally early February, confirming Bateson’s assessment from previous 7 days.