Personal Data Accessed in The Guardian Ransomware Attack

In other cybersecurity news …

British daily newspaper The Guardian has confirmed it was hit by a ransomware attack last month and the personal data of U.K. staff was accessed in the attack.

The Guardian described the incident as a “highly sophisticated” cyberattack involving unauthorized third-party access to parts of its network. It was most likely triggered by a phishing attempt in which the victim is tricked, often via email, into downloading malware.

The Guardian expects some critical systems to be back up and running within the next two weeks. A return to office working has been postponed until early February to allow IT staff to focus on network and system restoration.

Erich Kron is a security awareness advocate at KnowBe4.

“This is a lesson that no matter the industry you are in, you are a target for ransomware,” he said. “The initial infection vector here, email phishing, is one of the most common and successful attack types when it comes to ransomware. To prepare for ransomware, organizations should ensure they have good, tested and offline backups, and should ensure they are educating their staff on how to identify and report phishing emails. In addition, data loss prevention (DLP) controls are critical as bad actors often steal data and use the threat of releasing it publicly to extort victims.”