The media giant Lee Enterprises confirms the cyber attack while the media indicate a continuous disturbance
The Lee Enterprises publishing giant has confirmed that a cyber attack on its systems is the source of continuous disturbances in dozens of newspapers and media across the United States.
In an email shared with customers sent on Friday, what Techcrunch saw, Lee CEO Kevin Mowbray, said that the company was working to “fully restore our systems” after a cyber attack earlier in the week.
Tracy Rouch, spokesperson for Lee Enterprises, confirmed in Techcrunch that breakdowns were caused by a “cybersecurity event” and that the company was “now focused on determining information – if necessary – may have been affected by the situation”.
The spokesperson refused to say if he had received communications from the pirates or if he had a recovery calendar. The company would not say if it has the technical means, such as newspapers, to determine if information was accessible or stolen.
Lee did not describe the nature of the cyber attack, and the company would not comment beyond its emails.
Lee is one of the largest newspaper publishers in the United States and provides publication and website services to 72 publications, including St. Louis Post-Dispatch, which Friday, the news in history announced.
The post-discreet said that even if it had not lacked any day of publication, most of the newspaper editions of this week were affected. Some newspapers were smaller for a few days, post-discipatch said.
Several other media have indicated that they had been affected by the Lee cyber attack, including the Star-Tribune Casper in Wyoming. In A press article on his websiteThe Star-Tribune said: “Many Lee newspapers were initially unable to build pages and publish, although the company worked to print and put problems.” The newspaper website warns that cyber attacks can “temporarily assign access to subscription accounts”.
According to an email of February 3 sent to all Lee employees, seen by Techcrunch, Lee reported that one of its data centers hosting applications and services used by Lee employees and the media was offline , including its systems for subscribers services.
An e-mail to the employees of Lee sent later the same day said that its call center applications, certain telephone lines and other basic systems, including its VPN for remote employees and unique authentication for Accessing applications were inaccessible.
The breakdowns have not yet resolved on Monday. Lee would not make his ciso Rob Hoffpauir available for an interview.
Lee Enterprises published its latest quarterly results this week, declaring a profit of $ 144.6 million for the first tax quarter – down 7% from one year to the next – but has made no reference to the breakdown or cyber attack.
This is the second cyber attack on Lee in the past five years. THE Wall Street Journal reported in 2021 The fact that Iranian pirates compromised the Lee content management system as part of a campaign aimed at spreading disinformation before the 2020 presidential election.
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