The British Library hack is a warning for all academic libraries
Following the release of the British Library’s cyber incident report, Simon Bowie argues that the hack was symptomatic of an under-resourced technical team and the outsourcing of key infrastructure.
The British Library’s computer systems were recently attacked by the notorious ransomware group Rhysida. The attack led to many of the Library’s core systems remaining unavailable for months and the auction of 573GB of employees’ personal data on Rhysida’s .onion site. Though the Library is slowly recovering and has admirably published their cyber-incident review paper openly, the incident highlights failures of senior management and devaluing of library technical skills that are widely applicable to libraries across UK higher education.
The review paper highlights several issues that indirectly led to Rhysida’s attack: out-of-date or end-of-life legacy systems with security vulnerabilities, an overly complex technology estate sprawling unmanaged, a lack of multi-factor authentication across the estate. These are all symptomatic of a more wide-ranging management issue that is hinted at throughout the paper: a lack of investment on in-house technical staff leading to a focus on outsourcing systems and infrastructure to third-party providers.
