Ransomware scum infect Comic Relief server: Internal systems taken down

Comic Relief’s internal systems are down for the third day running after a ransomware attack on one of the charity’s servers on Wednesday.

Founded in 1985 by comedy scriptwriters, the charity behind the UK’s Red Nose Day telethon took down all of its internal systems in the wake of the attack. An email sent on Wednesday to the charity’s staff from Zennon Hannick, its CTO, confirmed that “there has been a ransomware attack on one of Comic Relief’s servers.”

Staffers were told there would “no access to other external systems such as the internet, Citrix or webmail”.

Workers at the charity were told to work from home if they needed internet access, which is not expected to be available on the premises until lunchtime today.

“[T]he information held on this server has been encrypted and we cannot access it,” Hannick’s email continued.

“However the good news is the files held on this server are only copies of information we hold elsewhere on our network drives. The IT and Data teams along with external specialists are continuing their investigation to ensure we understand all the implications of this attack,” the CTO’s email added.

Comic Relief’s systems are completely unable to access the outside world at the moment, although the team is attempting to put in place security measures to restore such access.

Users’ passwords have all been expired, and users will be requested to provide a new “strong” password which is more than eight characters long, and includes a mix of upper and lowercase letters, special characters and a number.

Neither Citrix nor Comic Relief had responded to The Register‘s requests for comment at the time of publication. We’ll update when we hear more. ®

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