British newspaper The Guardian has confirmed that cybercriminals accessed personal information of UK staff members in a ransomware attack last month.
The Guardian confirmed the data breach in an update emailed to staff Wednesday, and the newspaper reported shortly after. The email, signed by the but did not elaborate further.
Phishing is a common tactic employed by attackers and has been blamed for recent data breaches at Twilio, DoorDash, and Bed Bath & Beyond.
The Guardian has alerted UK staff that attackers have accessed sensitive personal information. The newspaper has around 1,500 employees worldwide, 90% of whom are in the UK.
A spokesperson for The Guardian told TechCrunch that “all staff in the UK were affected by the breach” and that the data accessed “included personnel data collected as part of everyone’s employment at The Guardian. There is a possibility that it has been confirmed. As first reported by The Record, a spokesperson confirmed that the employees’ names, addresses, national insurance numbers, government identification documents and salary details were compromised.
The company added that it had no reason to believe that the personal data of its readers or subscribers had been accessed, and that it did not believe hackers had accessed the personal data of staff in the United States or Australia.
However, some questions remain about the cyberattack, including who was responsible and whether The Guardian paid the ransom demand.
The Guardian first confirmed a ransomware attack on December 21st. At the time, staff were told he would be working from home until at least January 23, as the organization battled “behind the scenes” chaos. The newspaper said it hoped some critical systems would be back up and running “within the next two weeks”, but said the return of British staff to offices had been delayed until early February.
