The British Library may have to spend £7million of its reserves to recover from a crippling cyber attack, according to reports.
Criminals knocked out the website of the UK’s national library used by over 11m people a year in October.
They also took down WiFi inside the building beside London St Pancras Station preventing users ordering material from the library’s 150m-strong collection.
Hackers from the Rhysida group also published hundreds of thousands of stolen files online, including customer and personnel data, after bosses refused to pay a £600,000 ransom.
The Financial Times reported the library will use about 40 per cent of its reserves, which could equate to £6 or £7m out of an unallocated £16.4m to rebuild most of its digital services.
A spokesman said: “The final costs of recovering from the recent cyber attack are still not confirmed.
“The British Library and its Government sponsor, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, remain in close and regular contact.
“The library always maintains its own financial reserve to help address unexpected issues and no bids for additional funding have been made at this stage.”
In October, it was announced the National Cyber Security Centre and cybersecurity specialists would investigate the attack.
In a post to X, formerly Twitter, the institution said at the time: “We’re continuing to experience a major technology outage as a result of a cyber-attack. This is affecting our website, online systems and services, as well as some onsite services too.
“Following confirmation last week that this was a ransomware attack, we now have evidence that indicates the attackers might have copied some user data, and additional data appears to have been published on the dark web.
“We will continue to work with cybersecurity specialists to examine what this material is and we will be contacting our users to advise them of the practical steps they may need to take.”
The library is collaborating with the Metropolitan Police and says analysing data from the breach is likely to take several months.
The attack is still affecting the library’s online systems and services but its physical sites are open.
A reference-only version of its main catalogue will be back online from January 15.
British Library’s chief executive Sir Roly Keating said in November.: “We are immensely grateful to our many users and partners who have shown such patience and support as we work to analyse the impact of this criminal attack and identify what we need to do to restore our online systems in a safe and sustainable manner.
“It is too soon to offer an exact timetable, but we will provide regular updates as we progress this vital work.”
Cyber attackers motivation is financial. As the name of the crime suggests, the aim is to hold organisations and businesses to ransom using a type of malware software to disrupt, damage or gain unauthorised access to computer systems.
The DCMS declined to comment.
But a Government insider confirmed that the British Library would be expected to draw down from its reserves to recover.
