Experts comment on the cyber attack that caused Christie’s website to be down during major auction week

Opinions are divided on how disruptive the shutdown could be. Information shared by Artnet News.

It’s not a good week for an auction house to have a technology glitch, but that’s exactly what Christie’s faced as it prepared for its landmark New York auctions of modern and impressionist art. Since Thursday, the home’s website has posted a message saying it is out of business and phone numbers to contact various offices. Although the house only called it a website glitch, many believe it was a cyber attack. A message appeared on the home’s app saying it was shut down for "routine maintenance."

Major evening sales at the Rockefeller Center home are expected to reach $640 million this week. The house confirmed in a statement that New York sales will go ahead as planned despite the "process security incident."

“Customers will be able to bid in person, by telephone, in absentia and online through Christie’s LIVE,” the auctioneer said.

The largest lot is a painting by Bryce Marden, the price of which can reach $50 million. The painting is part of Tuesday’s 21st Century sale that will fetch at least $104 million, including a Basquiat estimated at $30 million. That same evening, the house will offer 26 works from the collection of Miami art patron Rosa de la Cruz for $37 million.

Thursday’s 20th Century Evening Sale could fetch up to $500 million, led by a $35 million Van Gogh and works by auction heavyweights such as David Hockney, Pablo Picasso and Andy Warhol. Day sales of various materials will take place on Friday and Saturday.

Eight auctions will continue, although the watch auction will be postponed, according to CEO Guillaume Cerutti. Such high-profile sales account for about half of the home’s annual revenue. The house used the services of Shorthand, a company that does web design and lists sales catalogs, but the site does not offer bidding or registration. According to the company’s website, Shorthand’s clients include Dow Jones, Honda, Nikkei and TripAdvisor.

“Christie’s has well-established protocols and practices in place that are regularly reviewed to deal with incidents like these,” Christie’s said in an emailed statement. “Our executive team, working with a group of internal and external technology experts, is taking every action to resolve this matter as quickly as possible. Christie’s proactively shut down some of our systems, including Christies.com, to make things easier for our IT staff. We have communicated this to our clients and continue to keep them informed. Our focus remains on minimizing disruption to their operations.”

“Our pre-sale shows have been very lively, with great enthusiasm from our customers, and we look forward to this week’s auctions,” the house said in a statement.

It was not immediately clear whether only the public site was affected or whether customer information was at risk. Christie’s did not immediately respond to an email seeking clarification.

“You can look at my website and find information about my company and me and what we do, but that’s not where my company lives,” said arts adviser Megan Fox Kelly, commenting on the difference between the two types of hacks. “I really can’t imagine that valuable data could be exposed. This is too complex a company. Still, it’s just as devastating when a promotional site crashes a week before the spring sales. Now they have to reorganize themselves to find a way to effectively organize these sales.”

At the same time, one observer wondered whether perception might be worse than reality.

“If I were one of their clients, I would be nuts about the security of my information,” says Erin Thompson, a professor of art crime at John Jay College in New York. “Everyone who registers to bid must provide credit card or bank account information. “There’s also a history of art ownership that people don’t want to talk about for a variety of reasons.”

She also expects there could be serious consequences in the coming weeks for the sales themselves or for the home if consignors are unhappy with the results.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if people took their work off the market or sued because the terms of the sale weren’t what they were promised,” Thompson said. “Much will depend on the intricacies of the contracts. It would be interesting to see how this would be decided in court.” Intervention in business as a result of a cyber attack does not have a rich judicial history.

Art’s lawyers are skeptical that such a lawsuit will be successful.

“As someone who has litigated and defended auction houses, I think this will be difficult to prove given the best efforts of Christie’s,” said lawyer John Cahill. “Not everyone can be happy at the auction, but I think it would be difficult to prove that some people were unable to bid.”

Another legal expert, speaking off the record, said: “Most contracts do not allow such claims for consequential damages. How can you calculate what could have happened if something like this hadn’t happened?”

The Christie’s vulnerability was also discovered last year when ZenTrust Partners discovered that anyone using a browser could find the exact location of works of art owned by some of the world’s largest collectors. About 10 percent of the images contained GPS coordinates indicating the location of the artwork, and it took the house several weeks to correct the situation after it was informed by ZenTrust.

While the current situation is certainly inconvenient for homes, some experts say there may be a silver lining for buyers who will be able to secure deals thanks to the uncertainty at a time when the market is already in decline.

It’s unclear how much of an impact this will have on sales if customers can’t bid online. In a conference call with reporters in July 2023, Cerutti noted that nearly 80 percent of bids at all auctions are now made online, a number that has risen sharply since 2019, when the figure was 45 percent, before the Covid-19 pandemic temporarily shut down personal sales. The house did not say whether online bidding could take place at upcoming sales and did not immediately respond to a request for information on what percentage of bids at major evening sales come through that channel.

Christie’s reported total sales of $6.2 billion last year, down from $8.4 billion in 2022, its best year in history. Most of that came from auction sales, which reached $5.03 billion, down from last year’s $7.2 billion.

The auction house is not alone in struggling with digital disruption. Cyberattacks have also recently knocked out major medical facilities; Non-profit organizations such as the British Library and various American museums were also attacked, causing website disruptions.

Experts react to uncertainty differently.

One New York art consultant said he was "shocked" that the house had not delayed the sale and suggested that some consignors might withdraw the works.

Others are not sure that the consequences will be so dire.

“This could slow down the auction,” New York consultant Todd Levin told Artnet News correspondent Katya Kazakina. “People will be upset. This could lead to the possibility of a deal here or there. It doesn’t put people in a super confident, upbeat mood. It’s just one more thing that went wrong. There’s already a lot going on in the world. Presidential elections are coming soon. And a large auction house could not post its catalogs for three days. This is something.”

One of the experts sympathizes with the house.

“It’s every business owner’s worst nightmare to have something like this happen at a critical time,” says New York art dealer-consultant Christine Tierney. “I support the Christie’s team in this matter. Hats off to them for finding a workaround. I still get emails from them, status reports and everything I need.”

Of course, auction houses have relied on one-on-one phone calls and in-person bidding for generations, and they may just return to these time-tested methods.

But Tierney also said the entire episode further reinforces the dangers of the technology we’re all so dependent on.

“We still keep a paper file of deals,” she said. "That’s why".