The press groups Blick and Tamedia have been hit by the recent cyberattack in Switzerland.
Data belonging to subscribers of the Blick and SonntagsBlick newspapers in the cantons of Aargau, Solothurn and Basel-Country was affected by the recent cyber attack, Blick announced on Thursday evening.
In Tamedia, delivery addresses from the same cantons have reportedly been published on the dark web. This is a part of the internet hosted on an encrypted network and accessible only through specialized tools that provide anonymity.
The IT systems of the Swiss newspaper group Neue Zürcher Zeitung (NZZ) were attacked on March 24 by a group supposedly calling itself “Play”.
The hackers reportedly demanded a ransom to prevent sensitive staff data from being published on the dark web.
On Wednesday, newspaper group CH Media confirmed that data stolen from the company during the recent ransomware attack had been published on the dark web.
CH Media was affected by the attack because it purchases IT services from NZZ. Another company owned by CH Media is responsible for the postal delivery of Blick newspapers. customer data reportedly consists of delivery addresses from the same cantons as Blick's.
After the hack, the three newspapers – Aargauer Zeitung, Luzerner Zeitung and St-Galler Tagblatt – were forced to temporarily abandon their various regional sections . The NZZ also appeared in a reduced format on some days. The newspapers have since returned to their regular editions .
No NZZ figures have been published to date, the company confirmed to Swiss public radio SRF on Wednesday.
Cyberattackers have breached several private and public targets in Switzerland in recent years, while ransomware attacks are on the rise.
These include defense contractor RUAG, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and Swiss municipalities.
Source of information: swissinfo.ch
