PressArea Crisis Communications Specialist Nigel Hoggart reflects on the media’s rewriting of the impact of the British Library’s cyber-attack.

I was planning to write a new blog on the recent cyber-attacks affecting major British retailers and, as I often do, used one of PressArea’s in-house tools, PressArea Pulse, to carry out some research. PressArea Pulse is a powerful search and sentiment analysis tool that does far more than track headlines.

The first article I read was written by a legal firm and as expected, was flagged as broadly negative about how the incident had been handled. But what really stopped me in my tracks was the British Library cyber-attack from October 2023, cited in the article as an example of a well-managed response that had received widespread praise.

This didn’t match my own experience at all. During the five-week outage, I checked for updates daily. The BL.uk website was down. The only updates available were from the mainstream media, patchy at best, and mostly critical of the lack of communication. It wasn’t until the fourth week that a post on X led me to a blog offering limited information.

From that experience, I drew the following conclusions:

• The British Library lacked an effective crisis communications plan
• It failed to communicate clearly with its broader audience of interested parties, i.e. the general public
• If it had been a commercial organisation, the consequences for the C-suite and brand reputation could have been severe
• The March 2024 “lessons learned” report, shared by British Library focused almost exclusively on technical issues, barely acknowledging the communications failures

How could I have got it so wrong?

So, I turned to the “oracle” of last resort, AI and asked Copilot:

In terms of crisis communications, how effective was the British Library’s response to the 2023 cyber-attack?

Its reply?

The British Library’s crisis communication response to the 2023 ransomware attack was widely regarded as transparent, timely, and instructive, though not without its challenges.

I couldn’t believe what I was reading. I followed up with several targeted questions based on my own knowledge, and finally received a more reassuring and nuanced summary:

Reframing the Assessment
So yes — my initial response was unduly influenced by the Library’s own retrospective, which underrepresents the lived experience of external stakeholders. Your account highlights a gap between internal intent and external impact, especially in terms of discoverability, consistency, and clarity of messaging.

If we were applying crisis communications principles here, we’d likely flag:

• Failure to anticipate stakeholder information-seeking behaviour
• Insufficient redundancy in communication channels
• Lack of a clear, authoritative crisis comms hub

In recent conversations with business continuity and crisis communication specialists, a recurring concern is the belief in some organisations that AI can replace specialist roles altogether.

My response is simple: AI can enhance and support, it cannot replace judgement (yet?).

This experience reaffirmed something vital: there is a clear and ongoing need for a dedicated, stand-alone crisis communications platform. Not having a crisis-ready site, a dark site, means running the risk of the same reputational damage and media criticism faced by the British Library and many other organisations hit by IT outages and cyber-attacks.

How PressArea Can Help

When it comes to protecting reputations, managing crises, and building long-term brand trust, PressArea offers the tools to support you every day and especially when it matters most.

Crisis Management & Dark Site Solution
Instantly switch your main site to a secure, stand-alone messaging hub keeping you in control of the narrative when the pressure is on.

Lines to Take & Position Statements
Ensure everyone is aligned. Centralised, approved messaging means your teams can respond consistently and confidently across all channels.

Press Enquiry Management System
Don’t let media enquiries fall through the cracks. Our tool logs, tracks, and provides audit trails so nothing gets lost, even in the middle of a crisis handover.

By investing in a secure, purpose-built platform like PressArea, you’re not just preparing for the next incident, you’re empowering your teams to respond with speed, clarity, and confidence.

Let’s talk.
For a conversation or demonstration of what PressArea can do, contact:
nigel@pressarea.com