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British Library to share learning from cyberattack
Some key services have been restored this week following incident last October
The British Library has said it will share its experiences of a major cyberattack with other institutions in the coming months.
The library was hit by the attack at the end of October last year and it has taken until this week for the organisation to get its main catalogue back online. The attack had a far-reaching impact on its website, online systems and services, and some onsite services.
“What happened to us in October has implications for the whole collections sector,” wrote chief executive Roly Keating in a blog on the British Library’s website. “And in the months ahead we will begin to share the lessons we’ve learned from this experience with our partners and peer institutions.”
This week also sees the library offer access to the majority of the its special collections – the archives, manuscripts and other unique items that are only available at the London site. Readers will need to come on-site to consult offline versions of the specialist catalogues, but staff will support those searching for and requesting items.
“Taken together, these developments mean that for the first time since the attack the majority of physical books, archives, maps and manuscripts held in the basements at our St Pancras site will once again be discoverable and useable by our readers,” Keating wrote. “Although the processes may be slower and more manual than we’ve all been used to, this is the familiar heart of the library’s offering to researchers and restores a core element of our public service.”
The British Library said there have been inaccurate media reports about the cost to the institution of recovering from the cyberattack.
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A statement said: “The final costs of recovering from the recent cyberattack are still not confirmed. The British Library and its government sponsor, the Department for Digital Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS), remain in close and regular contact. The library always maintains its own financial reserve to help address unexpected issues and no bids for additional funding have been made at this stage.”
A recent report in the Financial Times claimed that the British Library will have to spend up to £7m (or 40% of its £16.4m unallocated reserves) in order to recover from the cyberattack. After the library refused to pay a £600,000 ransom demanded by the hackers, those behind the cyber-attack published some data on the dark web, including customer and personnel data.
The British Library is receiving support from the National Cyber Security Centre and is collaborating with the Metropolitan Police and professional cybersecurity advisers.