Security News > 2024 > March > British Library pushes the cloud button, says legacy IT estate cause of hefty rebuild

The British Library says legacy IT is the overwhelming factor delaying efforts to recover from the Rhysida ransomware attack in late 2023.

Rhysida broke into the British Library in October last year, making off with 600GB worth of data and, crucially, destroying many of its servers which are now in the process of being replaced.

As for why the British Library was running systems so old they can no longer be restored, it says The Legal Deposit Libraries Regulations, introduced in 2013, had a big part to play.

These regs meant the library was required to make a number of key investments, using money taken from core Library funds, into mandatory services such as web archiving, digital preservation systems, and viewing applications.

The management of yesteryear also has responsbility for the British Library's "Unusually diverse and complex technology estate" - one that was formed around "Very different collections and organizational cultures brought together by the 1972 British Library Act.".

The British Library posts, via the report, a list of things it learned from the incident that will inform its future approach to IT and cybersecurity, which will be broadly applicable across the cultural and technical aspects of the organization.

News URL

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/03/11/british_library_slaps_the_cloud/