The media claims to be dealing with a “serious computer incident”, which began in the night between Tuesday and Wednesday. The newspaper thinks it is a ransomware attack. Files and systems are encrypted. Then a ransom is demanded to make it accessible again.
Since the system behind the publication of the articles was not affected, The Guardian just being able to bring news online. Even the printing of the paper is not causing any problems for the time being. Employees have to work from home because Wi-Fi doesn’t work in the office.
“As everyone knows, there has been a major incident affecting our network and computer systems in the last 24 hours. We believe it is a ransomware attack, but we are not ruling out other possibilities,” writes director Anna Bateson.
It’s unclear why the paper assumes it’s a ransomware attack. It is not known whether cyber criminals made ransom demands.