Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, whether she has taken steps to help secure the restoration of the British Library’s services following the recent cyber-attack against it; and what estimate her Department has made of the date by which those services will be restored.

The British Library is undertaking a forensic investigation of this incident, with the support of the National Cyber Security Centre and cybersecurity specialists, and has reported it to the Information Commissioner’s Office. This investigation will help to provide a full picture of what happened, and the extent of disruption caused. This will take time, during which the British Library is liaising closely with the Department for Culture, Media & Sport and others to provide updates.

The British Library has taken targeted protective measures to ensure the integrity of its systems, including the quarantining of hardware, the resetting of passwords for all staff, and the installation of additional monitoring and detection software across its estate.

The British Library’s physical sites remain open to the public and are offering a range of services, including reading room access for personal study, some limited manual collection item ordering, exhibitions, learning events, business support, and onsite retail. Details of what the public can access are available via the British Library’s social media channels.

It is too soon to give an exact timetable but the British Library anticipates restoring many digital services in the next few weeks, although some disruption may persist for longer.