The Philadelphia Inquirer is scrambling to restore its systems and resume normal operations after it became the latest major media organization to be targeted in a cyber-attack.
With no regular Sunday newspaper and online stories also facing some delays, the cyber-attack has triggered the worst disruption to the Inquirer in decades.
The attack aimed at Philadelphia’s paper of record has been reported to the FBI.
Disruption to the Inquirer, the most read daily in Pennsylvania and the third-longest continuously serving newspaper in the US, comes as the city prepares for a mayoral primary election on Tuesday. The Inquirer’s offices are closed through at least Tuesday, and the company is looking for co-working space to serve as a makeshift newsroom for election night.
It is unclear when normal editorial services will be restored.
News organisations are increasingly being targeted by sophisticated cyber-attacks – as have government agencies, hospitals, universities and the business sector.
In December, the Guardian was hit by a ransomware attack in which the personal data of staff in the UK and US was accessed. The print edition continued uninterrupted but the incident, which was probably triggered by a “phishing” attempt in which the victim is tricked – often through email – into downloading malware, forced the Guardian to close its offices for several months.
The Los Angeles Times in 2018 was affected by a major ransomware attack in which a kind of malicious software that essentially paralyses a system – holding it to ransom – and demands payment to free the system.
Few details about the attack on the Inquirer have been released to staff members or readers. It is unclear whether any personal data has been exposed, exactly which systems had been breached, or who was behind the attack and what motivations they had.
In an email, the Inquirer’s publisher, Lisa Hughes. said “we are currently unable to provide an exact timeline” on when operations will be fully restored. “We appreciate everyone’s patience and understanding as we work to fully restore systems and complete this investigation as soon as possible.”
Monday’s newspapers were printed albeit without any classified ads.
The incident is the greatest publication disruption to the state’s largest news organisation since a blizzard shut operations down for two days in January 1996, the company said.
