Christie’s Website, App Return Following Security Breach

Christie’s website and app are up and running following a “technology security issue” thattook them outjust ahead of the 250-year-old auction house’s hotly anticipated $840 million spring modern and contemporary art sale. The cyberattack took both its site and app offline on May 9;Artnewson May 20 reported that both were back in service as of May 19 after a ten-day outage that caused numerous headaches for Christie’s and set tongues wagging, as speculation swirled regarding the nature of the “issue” and whether sensitive information regarding the house’s wealthy buyers had been accessed or stolen.

Despite the outage, Christie’s went ahead with its spring sales, which took place largely unhampered by the breach, though the house did at the last minute yank several works, including a major Brice Marden canvas,Event, 2004–2007, which had been expected to fetch between $30 million and $50 million.Artnet Newsreported that Alex Rotter, chairman of 20/21 art departments at Christie’s, said after the sale that the house had decided to hold the painting until themarketfelt “right.” Still, opening-night sales generated roughly $114.7 million and took place before a full house, with online participants bidding unencumbered through the house’s online platform Christie’s Live. Among the artists whose work commanded record prices were Diane Arbus, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Ana Mendieta, and Reggie Burrows Hodges.

Speaking with Vanity Fair, threat analyst Brett Callow suggested that the delayed recovery of Christie’s site suggested a ransomware attack. The house to date has issued no information regarding the cause of the outage or whether client information had been compromised.