London’s world-famous British Museum was compelled to partially shut its doorways on the finish of final week, following a critical safety breach involving a former IT contractor.
As The Guardian experiences, police had been referred to as to the museum on Friday after a lately dismissed employee allegedly trespassed onto the museum website and was in a position to shut down varied programs, together with the museum’s ticketing platform.
As a consequence, guests confronted important disruptions, with many unable to entry galleries and exhibitions which can be normally open to the general public.
The Metropolitan Police confirmed that it had been referred to as to the museum at 8:25pm on Thursday, following experiences that “a person entered the British Museum and precipitated harm to the museum’s safety and IT programs.”
They confirmed {that a} man in his 50s had been arrested on suspicion of housebreaking and felony harm. He has since been bailed.
“An IT contractor who was dismissed final week trespassed into the museum and shut down a number of of our programs. Police attended and he was arrested on the scene,” a spokesperson for the British Museum instructed the media on Friday. “We’re working onerous to get the museum again to being absolutely operational however with remorse our momentary exhibitions have been closed as we speak and can stay so over the weekend – ticket holders have been alerted and refunds provided.”
The unexpectedly dramatic flip of occasions, at a museum usually identified for its sedate environment, has raised issues in regards to the safety at one among Britain’s best-known cultural establishments.
What has not been made clear is how an unauthorised particular person was in a position to acquire bodily entry to the pc programs. It’s thought-about good observe to revoke people’ entry – each bodily and digital – to programs after they depart the employment of an organization, by revoking passwords and taking away ID badges.
It is doable, in fact, that ID badges and key playing cards weren’t taken away from the IT contractor when he was dismissed, or that the museum was as an alternative relying upon much less safe methods of controlling entry to privileged areas – equivalent to a mix keypad.
The one comfort is that it seems the suspect was caught within the technique of inflicting the alleged harm whereas on the location itself. Though, in fact, it could have been significantly better if they’d not been in a position to acquire entry within the first place.
The British Museum says that it has initiated a radical evaluation of its safety protocols to forestall related assaults occurring sooner or later. These measures embrace a evaluation of its entry controls and monitoring programs to make sure that solely authorised employees can enter delicate areas of the museum.
The museum says it’s also evaluating whether or not it must strengthen the cybersecurity measures it has in place to defend its IT infrastructure.
Taking the chance to evaluation its cybersecurity definitely makes quite a lot of sense, because the British Museum is just not alone in dealing with challenges associated to cybersecurity.
In October 2023, the British Library – just like the British Museum, an iconic establishment that preserves and showcases an enormous array of cultural heritage and data – was hit by a ransomware assault that’s estimated to have price it hundreds of thousands of kilos and nonetheless impacts a few of its companies.
In mild of such incidents, extra museums are investing in superior safety applied sciences and coaching for workers to recognise and mitigate potential dangers.
The British Museum is full of treasures from all over the world, however it’s dealing with rising stress to return artefacts taken from different international locations.
Essentially the most notable instance is the Parthenon Marbles, historic sculptures faraway from Athens by Lord Elgin within the early nineteenth century. For many years, Greece has been campaigning for his or her return.
