[ad_1]
WATERTOWN – The Watertown Daily Times is recovering from a cyberattack that disrupted Sunday newspaper printing and distribution, but did not compromise the subscriber's or advertiser's personal data.
The servers targeted by criminals over the weekend were encrypted by a virus that quickly spread in Johnson Newspaper Corp., affecting servers used for internal content sharing used to produce newspapers in Watertown. , Hudson and Massena. The servers hosting the newspaper's website, subscriptions and emails have not been affected, according to an analysis by professionals of the information technology of the company.
This newspaper is a combined edition for Sunday and Monday.
Nate Nichols, IT manager of the company, said the attack was not aimed at obtaining personal data.
The extent of damage in the company's records will be analyzed as the systems required for daily production are put back online. The newspaper will report the attack to the authorities for investigation.
The newspaper's IT staff discovered Saturday afternoon that servers and computers had been infiltrated by a malicious virus that encrypted files.
The virus, which left only the calling card "Ryuk: The Balance of the Ghost Universe", is the same as the one that paralyzed Tribune Publishing in December, according to reports. published reports. He also paralyzed Stewart's data infrastructure in Florida on April 13th.
Sunday readers have received some excerpts from the newspaper, which are printed in advance. This includes the NNY Auto Finder, Life & Livelihood, the six-page color comic section, inserts and coupons.
The main news sections, Sports and Sunday Weekly, could not be printed on Saturday night, as computers running a machine that burns plates for the printing press were corrupted. The IT staff worked late into the night to create a new server to run the machine, but the solution was not determined in time to print the paper for delivery in the morning. Mr. Nichols, with the help of former Times employee Mike Smith, who offered his help, rebuilt the servers to run these machines on Sunday, allowing this newspaper to be printed.
Forbes.com reported that Ryuk hackers could be split between two or more cybercriminal organizations. "Together, they raised $ 4 million in less than a year from businesses and users stranded by malware on critical files and systems," Forbes said on February 20.
To watch a message for readers of The Watertown Daily Times, visit https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jMKmZXtdjko.
[ad_2]
Source link