Major arts organisations affected by ransomware data breach

guest · Jul 28, 2022

Arts organizations alarmed after WordFly ransomware attack
July 27, 2022

Arts organizations around the world are expressing concern about the wide-ranging impact of a ransomware attack on WordFly, a tech company providing digital marketing for dozens of the most popular cultural organizations in several countries.

The company handles email and text message marketing for organizations like the Smithsonian, the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, Canada Stage, the Sydney Dance Company in Australia, the Royal Shakespeare Company, the U.K.’s Old Vic Theatre and several other major organizations.
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Bentley said on July 10, the company hired an outside digital forensics firm and cybersecurity teams to address the issue.

By July 14, the company confirmed that the ransomware group “exported the email addresses and other data our customers utilize to communicate with their subscribers from our environment to an external location.”
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They provided organizations with sample statements they can send to subscribers and customers. The statements focus on the lack of credit card numbers or government ID information and claim the data stolen in the attack was “non-sensitive.”

Several organizations across Australia, the United Kingdom and more sent similar messages to customers and subscribers.
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guest · Aug 6, 2022

Wordfly: Information about a Recent Security Incident
Updated August 02, 2022

Safeguarding and protecting the privacy and confidentiality of our customers and their data is a top priority of ours at WordFly.

On July 10, our Engineering team became aware of a network disruption that rendered our technological environment inaccessible. The incident was propagated by a bad actor who conducted a ransomware attack on WordFly, resulting in the encryption of the WordFly application.

WordFly safely and securely returned to service on July 29.
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We can now confirm that only a small subset of our customer base had data exported by the bad actor that perpetrated this incident. At this time, we believe that the exported data was not sensitive in nature and largely consisted of names and email addresses.
It is our understanding that as of the evening of July 15, 2022, the data was deleted from the bad actor’s possession.
Current status
At this time, it is our understanding that this situation has been contained. Our investigation of the incident is ongoing, and our forensics experts are still examining evidence to determine its root cause. At this time, we have safely and securely restored the WordFly application and WordFly is back online.
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WordFly Incident FAQ for U.S./Canadian/Asia Pacific based Customers
Updated August 2, 2022

Smithsonian Statement: WordFly Data Security Incident
Jul. 22, 2022 (Updated Aug. 2, 2022)
The Box - WordFly Data Security Incident
August 3, 2022
VSO - A Statement from the VSO regarding the Wordfly Data Incident
Important Update: August 3, 2022
The Courtauld - WordFly Incident and Response
July 21, 2022

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