On the evening of the 8th of February 2022, The Royal Dublin Society (RDS) became aware that it was the victim of a cyber security incident, known as a ransomware attack. The criminals responsible for this incident extracted data from our servers, which included personal data belonging to staff, members, suppliers, customers and partners before encrypting it and making that data inaccessible to us.
This incident is being thoroughly investigated by our IT partners who have taken immediate and appropriate actions to restore our systems, reinforce existing security measures and to mitigate its potential impact, as well as determining its origins. The RDS has also engaged the services of a specialist cyber security firm to assist in our recovery from this incident. The matter has been reported to An Garda Siochana and the Office of the Data Protection Commissioner has also been notified of this breach pursuant to the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation).
We have notified those individuals whose data has been impacted by this attack and they have been advised to take all necessary precautions going forward. There is no impact on the RDS's commercial operations, and we continue to operate as per normal.
The RDS deeply regrets that this incident has occurred.
