Ransomware attack on Guardian: employees told to work from home

London: The Guardian, a leading newspaper in the United Kingdom, has confirmed that a ransomware attack hit its systems on Wednesday, reports IANS.

On Wednesday, the newspaper informed that the attack happened late on Tuesday, affecting its IT infrastructure.

The media editor of the publication informed, "Online publishing is largely unaffected, with stories continuing to be written and published to the Guardian website and app."

Further, Guardian Media Group Chief Executive Anna Bateson and Editor-in-Chief Katharine Viner said in a note to employees that the administration believes that it was a ransomware attack though it is considering all possibilities.

"We are continuing to publish globally to our website and apps, and although some of our internal systems are affected, we are confident we will be able to publish in print tomorrow," they told the employees.

They informed the employees, "We are continuing to publish globally to our website and apps, and although some of our internal systems are affected, we are confident we will be able to publish in print tomorrow."

Also, "we would like everyone to work from home for the remainder of the week unless we notify you otherwise," Guardian said, adding that the arrangement will not be applicable for some key exceptions.

In September, a breach happened in the internal systems of Fast Company, a US business publication. In October, The New York Post was attacked.

In India, the latest was the attack on AIIMS (All India Institute of Medical Science) Delhi. Its servers were reported hacked for the first time on November 23. A case of extortion and cyber terrorism was registered by the Intelligence Fusion and Strategic Operations (IFSO) unit of the Delhi Police two days later. News agency IANS reported that probes into the matter found evidence that Chinese hackers planted the ransomware in the AIIMS servers.

The attack caused servers to go down and many departments in the hospital to change operations to offline mode.

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