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    British Library cyberattack

    From Wikipedia - Reading time: 2 min

    Entrance gate to the British Library on Euston Road, St Pancras, London, looking toward Newton statue

    In October 2023 Rhysida, a Russia-affiliated hacker group, attacked the online information systems of the British Library.[1] The main catalog returned online on 15 January 2024 in a read-only format,[2] though some of the library's services are expected to be unavailable for months. The EThOS collection of British doctoral theses remained offline as of 19 December 2023.[1]

    Rhysida demanded a ransom of 20 Bitcoin, at the time around £6,000,000, to restore services and withhold stolen data.[3][4] When the British Library did not acquiesce to the attempt, Rhysida publicly released approximately 600GB of leaked material online.[3]

    Timeline[edit]

    • 29 October 2023 - British Library announced an "IT outage"[5]
    • 31 October - Outage confirmed publicly to be the consequence of a cyberattack[5]
    • 16 November - Attempt at digital extortion, aka "ransomware attack" confirmed by British Library[5]
    • 21 November - Rhysida statement confirming their involvement[5]
    • 15 January 2024 - Online catalog restored, some specialty catalogs remain offline[2]

    Impact[edit]

    There were a number of impacts to the functioning of the library following the attack.[6]

    • Works from the Boston Spa branch of the library could not be transferred to the London site
    • Authors who receive royalties from borrowed books had payments delayed.
    • £7M in costs
    • The computerised index was off-line for months, with partial restoration in January 2024

    References[edit]

    1. ^ a b Knight, Sam (19 December 2023). "The Disturbing Impact of the Cyberattack at the British Library". The New Yorker. ISSN 0028-792X. Retrieved 2023-12-22.
    2. ^ a b Nanji, Noor (15 January 2024). "British Library starts restoring services online after hack". BBC News. Retrieved 2024-01-15.
    3. ^ a b Adams, Geraldine Kendall (20 December 2023). "Museums on alert following British Library cyber attack". Museums Association. Retrieved 2023-12-23.
    4. ^ Milmo, Dan. "Rhysida, the new ransomware gang behind British Library cyber-attack". The Guardian. Retrieved 2023-12-23.
    5. ^ a b c d "British Library cyber attack explained: What you need to know | Computer Weekly". ComputerWeekly.com. Retrieved 2024-01-16.
    6. ^ Sherwood, Harriet (15 January 2024). "'A 22-carat disaster': what next for British Library staff and users after data theft?". The Guardian. Retrieved 2024-01-15.

    External links[edit]

    This article is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
    Original source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British Library cyberattack
    Status: article is cached
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