British Museum partially closes after fired worker 'shuts down' IT systems

The British Museum said it had closed a number of exhibits after a fired IT contractor "shut down" some of its systems, in one of several unrelated incidents targeting European museums on Saturday.

The London venue, one of the UK capital's biggest tourist draws and best known for housing the Rosetta Stone and the Parthenon Marbles, said police had arrested the suspect - a man in his 50s - at the scene on suspicion of burglary and criminal damage.

"An IT contractor who was dismissed last week trespassed into the museum and shut down several of our systems," the museum said.

"We are working hard to get the museum back to being fully operational."

Meanwhile in the Netherlands, the Drents Museum in Assen said it was closed for the weekend after robbers used explosives to break in and steal three antique bracelets and a gold helmet.

Police were alerted to an explosion early Saturday, with the thieves stealing the golden helmet of Cotofenesti, dating from the mid-fifth century BC, the museum said.

The helmet - the centerpiece of a temporary exhibition - was on loan from Romania's National History Museum in Bucharest.

And in Paris, the world-famous Orsay Museum was forced to disable its own ticketing system for several hours on Friday last week after falling victim to a fraudulent scheme involving "mirror sites," it said. The museum - home to works by Vincent van Gogh and other master painters - was alerted earlier on the same day that visitors trying to buy tickets online were being redirected without realizing it to bogus ticket sales websites. Operations were back to normal the following day, it said.

The incident in London is the latest embarrassing security lapse for the museum after allegations emerged in 2023 that a former employee was suspected of selling items stolen from its vast collection.

About 1,800 objects were disclosed as missing or stolen in August, 2023. Hundreds of the items have since been recovered.

Agence France-Presse