A cyberattack mocks the British newspaper The Guardian, and journalists have been working from home for weeks

The Guardian’s offices will remain closed for weeks due to a serious cyber attack. The networks were hit by ransomware on December 20th and critical computer systems have been shut down since then. Initially, employees only had to work from home on holidays, but have now heard that offices will remain closed until at least January 23, the news site reported. semaphore.

Among other things, the wifi broke down in the building and the cash register in the canteen stopped working. It was also nearly impossible to transfer employee salaries last month. In the first days after the attack, the newspaper could only reach the printer in time with much art and flying. This is getting better now, but it will still be a complex task.

“It’s a complete nightmare,” one employee told Semaphore. There will be internal concerns that files will be lost or affected by the attack. A very small group of employees will still do some work in the office, but everyone is forced to stay at home.

The company’s online posting and email system is still operational. “We’re lucky some systems don’t communicate with each other,” Semaphore quotes one employee.

The Guardian is headquartered with the main editorial board in London. British Quality Newspapers has smaller offices in New York and Australia. The extent of the attack’s impact on systems outside of London was not disclosed.

The attackers’ motives remain unclear. The Guardian has won numerous awards for great investigative journalism stories in the past and has also recently exposed, among other things, hacks involving Israelis. Pegasus spyware And the secret lobby of Uber.

This type of reporting can be a catalyst for cyberattacks, but in this case it could also be just a classic ransomware attack, where attackers lock down systems and want to see the money before it’s released again.