Cyberattack taunts UK newspaper The Guardian, journalists have been working from home for weeks

The offices of the British newspaper The Guardian will remain closed for weeks due to a serious cyberattack. Networks were hit by ransomware on December 20, and major computer systems have been locked down since then. Initially, employees were only required to work from home during the holidays, but have now learned that offices will remain closed until at least January 23, the news site reports. Semaphore.

Among other things, the wifi in the building is down and the cash registers in the canteen no longer work. It was also nearly impossible to transfer last month’s salary to employees. In the first days after the attack, the newspaper was only able to get to the printer on time with great skill and theft. It’s getting better now, but it would still be a complicated job.

“It’s a total nightmare,” said an employee at Semafor. There would be internal fears that files would be lost or otherwise affected by the attack. A very small group of employees would still work in the office, but all others are forced to stay at home.

The company’s online publishing system and email are still operational. “We are lucky that some systems do not communicate with each other,” quotes a Semafor employee.

The Guardian is headquartered with the main editorial office in London. The quality British newspaper has smaller offices in New York and Australia. The extent to which the attack affects systems outside London has not been disclosed.

The motivations of the attackers are still unclear. The Guardian has won numerous awards for major investigative reporting in the past and recently revealed about, among other things, hacks involving the Israeli Pegasus spy software and the secret hall of Uber.

This type of reporting can be a trigger for cyberattacks, but in this case it can also be a classic ransomware attack, where attackers lock down systems and want to see money before releasing it again.