The Swedish Church's IT systems were hit by a major ransomware attack orchestrated by the infamous hacker group Blackcat.

The church was warned about system vulnerabilities by the Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency (MSB) a week before the attack, but the issues were not addressed until days after the attack.

As a result, about 500 of the church's systems, including burial, payroll, and economic systems, were down for weeks.

The church has refused to pay the ransom and is working with an external security firm to recover the systems.

The incident is now under investigation by the police.