British Library slowly resuming service after cyber-attack

Officials at the British Library say that key services are slowly being restored following a catastrophic cyber-attack on the institution’s digital systems last October, with around 1,000 digitised manuscripts now accessible online. They include the Sherborne Missal (around 1399-1407), a service book containing texts required for celebrating Mass; an illustrated bestiary with additions from Gerald of Wales’s Topographia Hibernica from the late 12th century; and the Eadui Psalter (around 1012-23), containing psalms and other texts used by medieval Benedictine monks.

The so-called ransomware attack was part of a recent pattern marking an increase in the severity of cyber attacks on critical infrastructure at cultural institutions. “The time it is taking us to bring our services back is an exact measure of the destructiveness of the original attack, which directly targeted our core computing infrastructure,” wrote Roly Keating, the library’s chief executive, in July.

The Financial Times reported that the hackers, who claimed to have stolen user data and employee details, released images of library employees’ passports and opened an auction for an undisclosed set of documents. The library has said that it “has not made any payment to the criminal actors responsible for the attack, nor engaged with them in any way”.

The cost of the attack is still being calculated. However, in response to a freedom of information (FOI) request by the charity sector company Civil Society Media in June, the estimated loss to 31 March is £1.6m, a library spokesperson said.

An anonymous UK curator, who studies at the library, tells The Art Newspaper that “much has improved but it still feels like a rather patchy service at times”. Simon Bowie, a former systems librarian, wrote on social media meanwhile: “What does this mean for UK libraries? I would argue it means that most UK university libraries are currently at risk. As most have stripped their in-house systems team to the bone or got rid of tech staff entirely, library systems are largely outsourced creating vulnerability.”