Information Warfare and the Library
Sometimes, without realizing it, you find yourself in the middle of a world event. Naturally, you may not know it at the time. It’s hard to place a single event within the greater arc of history. But one day, this happened to me—and no, I didn’t understand its significance at the time.
The Day the British Library Went Dark
On the morning of October 28, 2023, I was in Central London looking for an escape from the crowded streets. My go-to has always been (and still is) the British Library—an incredible place where you can step freely into a few millennia of knowledge. It isn’t a typical lending library; instead, it houses Reading Rooms that require an appointment and a (free) reading card. The entrance café bustles like an anthill, with baristas engaging in conversations that range from local events to historical reflections.
The open floors are filled with students—young and old—pouring over books, preparing for exams, or simply stretching their minds. At the center stands a towering column of books, reminiscent of a Gringotts vault, except it holds the gold of human knowledge.
That morning, I joined the café’s busy crowd, looking to grab a cup of tea and access the WiFi. But there was no WiFi.
At first, I assumed it was a temporary glitch. I waited. Nothing. Hours later, still nothing. What I didn’t realise then was that the British Library servers had been hacked—a ransomware attack had taken down one of the world’s most significant knowledge hubs.
It wasn’t just the WiFi. Their online catalogues were crippled. What began as a temporary inconvenience turned into a multi-year disruption. And it wasn’t just about money—this was an attack on information itself.
The Front Lines of Information Warfare
Cyberattacks happen every day, unfortunately. At first, I assumed the British Library hack was just another ransomware attempt—a group looking for money. And yes, money played a role. But this wasn’t just about financial extortion. This deliberate hacking crippled access to knowledge.
Libraries have always been targets in warfare. Throughout history, the destruction of books has gone hand in hand with the suppression of ideas:
The fire and subsequent decay of the Library of Alexandria erased vast knowledge from antiquity.
Nazi book burnings, an attempt to erase intellectual dissent.
The bombing of libraries and publishing houses during World War II struck at the heart of cultural identity.
Today, cyberwarfare is the new battleground. Instead of setting books ablaze, attackers encrypt, corrupt, or block access to knowledge itself.
March 1-2, 2025 – PubMed Central Goes Dark
This weekend, PubMed Central went down outside the United States. People have now learned about alternatives like EuropePMC. But let’s think of the initial impact and shock of the weekend.
For researchers, PubMed Central is the ‘Google of science’—a vital medical and life sciences research repository. Scientists worldwide use PubMed IDs to connect research findings, build citations, and advance knowledge.
So with PubMed down, speculation ran wild:
Was this an act of the new U.S. regime, restricting access to publicly funded research?
Was it a deliberate geopolitical move to limit international research collaborations?
Or was it simply a technical failure, exposing the fragility of our information systems?
The unsettling truth is that any of these scenarios are entirely believable. In the past month alone, U.S. government employees have been fired en masse, US government websites have disappeared, and public resources have been taken offline. The idea that the U.S. National Library of Medicine could go dark no longer seems far-fetched.
The New Front in the Battle for Knowledge
This blog is not just about PubMed or the British Library, though. It’s about the global vulnerability of knowledge repositories.
And it’s happening everywhere.
University servers are prime ransomware targets—institutions have paid millions to recover access to their own research.
Scientific journals face waves of manipulations (e.g., fictitious authorship, conflicts of interests), undermining trust in the system.
Open access initiatives—once heralded as the future of research—are under attack from political and economic forces.
The ability to access knowledge is not a given. It is fragile. It is constantly under siege.
Gird Your Loins
The lesson in all this? Never take knowledge for granted.
Academic research, libraries, repositories, and other information hubs will continue to be infiltrated and attacked. Some will be held hostage for ransom. Others will be erased for ideological reasons. Some will disappear simply because we didn’t protect them well enough.
If knowledge is power, those who seek power will always seek to control knowledge.
Prepare accordingly.