Philadelphia Inquirer: Data of 25,000 people were stolen in a breach

The Philadelphia Inquirer daily newspaper revealed that attackers behind a security breach in May 2023 have stolen the personal and financial information of 25,549 people .

See also: Philadelphia Inquirer: Its operations were interrupted due to a cyberattack

The Inquirer is Philadelphia's largest-circulation newspaper and has won 20 Pulitzer Prizes since its founding in 1829. It is also the third-longest-running daily newspaper in the United States.

In May 2023, The Inquirer revealed that its systems had been compromised in a cyberattack detected after its content management system unexpectedly crashed. In response, the Philadelphia Inquirer took some systems to contain the security breach and hired forensic experts from Kroll to investigate the “anomaly.”

The attack disrupted the publication of the printed newspaper, with home delivery subscribers being asked to stay informed about the latest news using the newspaper's website (inquirer.com), which remained unaffected

“On May 13, 2023, we became aware of suspicious activity related to certain internal information systems. In response, we began working with third-party cybersecurity experts to investigate the nature and scope of the activity,” the Philadelphia Inquirer reported in data breach notifications sent to affected individuals.

See also: Cuba Ransomware group: Spreads undetectable malware

The investigation found that the information exposed during the breach included the names of affected individuals and other personal identifiers combined with financial account numbers or credit/debit card numbers (in combination with a security code, password, or PIN for the accounts).

The Philadelphia Inquirer advised affected individuals to monitor their accounts for identity theft and fraud attempts due to the breach and offered 24 months of free Experian credit monitoring and identity restoration services.

Although The Inquirer did not disclose the nature of the attack, the Cuba ransomware gang claimed responsibility a week after the incident. The ransomware group claimed to have stolen financial documents, correspondence with bank employees, balance sheets, tax documents, compensation claims and source code from the Inquirer's compromised servers .

See also: Cuba ransomware: Attack on Wisconsin health department

The group also posted the files on its website, suggesting that the newspaper refused to pay the ransom and that the extortion attempt had reached a dead end. However, a day after the files were leaked , the Philadelphia Inquirer reported that the documents did not “ appear to have come from a breach at the newspaper .” Shortly after, the ransomware gang removed the Philadelphia Inquirer listing from its website.

Source: bleepingcomputer